Essential Mixers for Holiday Party Bartending

Joe Trujillo: Hi, I am Joe Trujillo of the Hospitality Training Institute and I am showing you how to set up your home bar for a holiday party. Right now, I am going to be discussing the basic juices and so that you will need for your party. Most professional bar tenders use the containers similar to this to pour their standard juices.

There are only four juices that you need. They are the following, cranberry juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, and grapefruit juice. It doesn't matter the brand, it doesn't matter the container. A regular 1 liter bottle of each should be sufficient for your party. For a standard party of 10, I would recommend getting about two bottles of cranberry juice and two containers of orange juice as those are the predominant juices that you will be utilizing.

Next stuff are your other mixers. You have your vermouths, dry and sweet. It comes in several different type of varieties. Martini Rosso is the popular brand but again it doesn't matter, it's your preference, depends on your budget. You don't need to spend the whole lot, you would only need a whole lot of quantities in terms of the vermouth. These bottles will last for quite some time. Chances are you really won't even use your sweet vermouth, you will just be relying on your dry. That's only if you plan on making Martinis but at a minimum, I would recommend have more dry vermouths. Next stuff is your lime juice and grenadine. Both these items can be found in your regular grocery fruit store and are pretty inexpensive. Bottles of this size should be more than sufficient for your party, for party sizes up to about 20, I would say. Finally, your basic sodas. The two that you will need on hand definitely are your tonic water and your club soda. Club soda and tonic tend to go pretty quick, especially if you are making cocktails and highball drinks. Behind the bar I have put this what is known as the speed form and on this are my basic sodas. Since you don't have this luxury necessarily, you will need to pick up regular 2 liter bottles of the following sodas, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Ginger ale. Usually having about two to three bottles of each should be more even sufficient. I recommend having more of the Coke and Diet Coke than having of the Ginger ale and Sprite but again, it all depends on the taste and the drinks that you plan on serving at your holiday party. That's basically covers your standard juices and mixers for your holiday party. Next stuff are your rocks drinks.