Excellent advice on how to stock your bar. I have bunches of bottles of liquour I have never touched that I bought because I thought they would be cool. There’s no point. Unless the bottle is shaped like a crystal skull. Akroyd totally should have done an Indiana Jones cross-promotion.

How to Stock a Home Bar | The Art of Manliness.

Yesterday I was playing with a shopping list app on my Android Phone and decided to try and scan the bar-codes of my bar stock. I had pretty good luck, over 75% of the scans worked, though a couple came back weird, mostly listed as skins for Blackberry phones?

So here is a running inventory of our bar. I didn’t realize how many different types of rum we have, pretty exciting. And I also discovered that my bottle shelving is half the size it needs to be!

My goal is to get some neon signs to hang in the bar, and an open sign to hang in the window, but I’m cheap and have never wanted to pay the asking price.  A couple weekends ago, we went to the Flower and Garden Show at the Quad City Expo Center and there was a booth there selling LED signs.  I told my wife I liked them but I was sure they wanted about four times what I wanted to pay (again, a cheapskate.)  But when I looked closer, they only wanted $35.  I could handle that.  So I bought the animated Cocktails sign.  I think it looks pretty good.

Inspired by the DNA Lounge

In a rocks glass, add ice and the following:

• 1 ½ oz raspberry vodka
• 1½ oz sour mix
• 1 oz cranberry juice

Stir and enjoy with your Valentine.

Their version included soda also, but we omitted it.

Sunday night I created a new drink, if you can call it that.  We picked up a bottle of Hpnotiq liqueur in a gift pack over the holidays, and opened it up this weekend.  We mixed up a couple drinks from the recipe card with it, and then I decided to try and pair it with the X Rated Fusion liqueur, because what better to mix a vodka liqueur with, than another vodka liqueur?

The Vodka Quickie

• 1 oz Hpnotiq liqueur
• 1 oz X-Rated Fusion liquer

shake with ice and strain into a glass

If I still had a landline, I would buy this. I still might.

I found this weird “water ski” at Goodwill earlier in the year.  It had three evenly spaced holes through it.  It looks like it was part of some Cuervo point of sale display.  I bought it figuring I could make it into something.  In the spring, I found these clearance over the cabinet lights and bought them, figuring I could do something with them.  Then like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, they melded together.  With the help of some plumbing parts and epoxy, I now have this pretty cool (at least I think) over the bar light fixture.

Angostura Bitters

Angostura Bitters, the little bottle with the too big label, are in short supply due to production problems and people are hoarding them.  The company hopes to have production back up to normal levels soon, but until then, the price of Manhattans and other drinks are climbing.  I’m almost out, too!

Angostura crisis hits Manhattan