Cocktail Making Equipment

If you want to make cocktails at home, there’s some basic equipment that you’ll need. Don’t worry, you don’t need to spend a lot, nor do you need a lot of fancy stuff in your kitchen to make good cocktails. Like any hobby, start with the basic things you need, then upgrade from there. If you don’t have any of the things listed below, don’t worry! You can always improvise a little bit.

First things first, what cocktails do you want to make? If you just have a few bottles of booze laying around and don’t know what to make, check out our page where you can search our cocktail database by ingredient. Here we’ll tell you what you can make with what you have on hand, and even tell you what cocktails you can make if you buy just one more ingredient. Before you know it you’ll build up a mighty home bar to entertain with.

Anyway, once you know what you want to make, it’s time to get some stuff to mix those drinks with!

Let’s talk basics. You’ll need:

• Cocktail shaker: we suggest a tin on tin Boston-style shaker. A “proper” Boston shaker consists of a stainless steel large shaker tin and a glass pint, meaning it’s prone to breakage. Having both elements of the shaker made of stainless steel ensures they won’t break, it’s easy to create and break a seal, and easy to clean. Other shaker styles (like the Cobbler Shaker, which is popular), have cons that are overcome by a tin on tin style. So go with that.
• Strainers: if you’re getting the shaker we suggest, at minimum you’ll need a Hawthorne Strainer. Next, consider a Fine Mesh Strainer and then a Julep Strainer.
• Jigger: this is for measuring out ingredients for your cocktails. Don’t just use a cheap shot glass as you’ll be needing a lot of half and quarter measures. On that, make sure you get a jigger with indentations on the inside for multiple measurements.
• Bar Spoon: you may be able to get away with a normal spoon to start with, but a proper bar spoon is nice an long (about 30 cm), making it easier to stir drinks. It also has some weight to it and has grooves in it to make handling it a lot easier.
• Muddler: you can probably get away with not having a muddler for awhile, but, as with a lot of tools, once you have the right tool, you’ll realise why it’s there.
• Mixing Glass: you can get away with not having a proper mixing glass for awhile. Instead, just use any large heavy glass you have on hand. Where you’ll run into trouble is that a proper mixing glass is that a Hawthorne Strainer will sit on top of a mixing glass easier, and it will have a spout.

It can be hard deciding what to get for all of these things, so thankfully there are a lot of kits out there that just have everything (usually without a mixing glass, but you can work your way up to that). Below are links to some good Amazon kits: