Cocktail Ingredients??

[StretchyLegs]

I am buying my hubby a cocktail maker set for Christmas, and want to get him a stock of bottles to go with it.
Please could anyone recommend some drinks I could buy, nothing too extreme, just a basic starter kit would be really great THANKYOU!

[rjkh]

Well, there are thousands of different spirits and liqueurs etc out there so it's difficult to say exactly what you or your husband would particularly like.

The best thing to do would probably be find a couple of cocktails you are keen on and buy in the ingredients for those rather than try to stock a whole "home bar."

Remember, if you go into the average boozer, they probably have in the region of a grand's worth of booze on the back bar, but nothing you could ever make a decent cocktail with!

Two of the staples you probably don't think of first though are lemon or lime juice and sugar syrup. Probably cost you about �3 to get a decent amount of each (just boil up equal parts sugar and water and allow to cool for sugar syrup). Once you have these the range of drinks you can make is multiplied immeasurably.

Also remember its not just about the spirits you buy in. You can use all manner of ingredients, so just get a bit creative. Most decent cocktail bars these days have a range of herbs, jams and marmalades, fresh fruit and teas in stock as well so dont feel restrained by dull spirit, spirit juice recipes!

It depends how much you want to spend, but I suppose core ingredients would be vodka, gin, rum, Cointreau and a selection of juices. That should be enough to get you started anyway.

Check the internet for some recipes, but remember that a lot of the sites are American (or just rubbish!) and so there might be better versions out there. If you need any I can give you some decent recipes.

Oh and one final thing that people always forget - you will need LOTS of ice!

Happy shaking!

[beryllium]

Hi StretchyLegs,
I use this site for all our c o c k t a i l recipes and I love Long Island Iced Teas and shooters..... choose a couple of cocktails you like the sound of and then buy the drinks you need to make them......

http://www.cocktail.uk.com

I bought alot of my drinks from here and they are very good at fast delivery.....

http://www.thedrinkshop.com/products/productli st.php?catid=16

Happy mixing!!!!