By Leigh O’Connor.
Even the most dedicated home bartenders can get stuck in a rut sometimes.
Unless you are willing to spend your paycheck on a host of new bottles every month, it can be difficult to get creative.
Enter Melbourne bar owner and author, Cara Devine!
A cocktail bartender for almost 15 years and co-owner of Melbourne bar, Goodwater, Cara dishes up some of the secrets of the trade to help make the most of your home bar set-up in her new book, ‘Behind the Home Bar’.
A follow-up to her successful publication, ‘Sweet and Bitter’, this is THE cocktail book you need to live your best drinking life at home.
It covers everything you need to know to build your home bar in a way that is exciting, innovative, won’t break the bank and – crucially – will get the party started.
Originally from Scotland, Cara moved to Melbourne in 2014 and has been soaking up knowledge from the city’s hospitality scene ever since, as well as sharing some of her own.
She is the host of a hugely popular web series, ‘Behind the Bar’, which shows professional bartenders as well as viewers at home, how to make classic and bespoke cocktails.
Containing more than 25 ‘prep’ recipes spanning syrups and cordials, oleos and sherbets, bitters and tinctures and pickles and ferments, these essential additions to your home bar will elevate your basic cocktails and make them more delicious.
Try them out in the 20 cocktails such as blended bebia with pear and chamomile purée or a sherbet gimlet with chilli lime sherbet and mango and black tea bitters.
With cocktails to suit every mood and occasion, set-up notes and prep recipes to add layer upon layer of flavour to your favourites with minimal fuss – drinking at home has never tasted better or sounded more appealing!
We have three of Cara’s recipes to recreate for yourself:
Stirred down drinks can still be fun and here the beetroot and apple cordial adds a fruity and savoury edge to an essentially Manhattan-style drink. The mezcal adds an intriguing edge, which makes this drink very much an after-dark sipper.
"The Jungle Bird is one of my favourite tropical drinks. It has all of the rum and pineapple you would expect from this style of drink, but Campari brings a bitter edge and interest,” Cara explains.
"Here, we’re using coconut fat-washed Campari to bring depth and the mandarin and pink pepper shrub adds florals and spice for the best Jungle Bird you’ve ever had!”
This is a mashup of a London Calling and a London Fog with a 20th-Century twist. What is it they say? There’s no such thing as a new idea? Essentially, it’s a short, citrus-forward gin drink that will put a pep in your step.
