Entertaining at home? Here’s a DIY on bars

Bottle stations

Open bars are for weddings. To keep your event manageable, limit your guests to a handful of drinks, and let them do the mixology work.

Liz Brusca, spokeswoman for San Francisco’s Anchor Distilling Co., which makes and imports liquors, suggests starting by picking a handful of cocktails to serve, shopping for and prepping the ingredients, then arranging each in its own location. For a recent event at San Francisco’s Gotham Club, she set out four cocktail stations, each equipped with the tools, glasses, liquor and mixers needed for one drink. When appropriate, she included a framed recipe.

Even simpler, a whiskey station with different takes on the brown spirit — think scotch, bourbon and rye — high-quality ice, glasses and water droppers (adding a drop of water to whiskey helps the flavors open up).

Do ahead

When you’re deciding what drinks to serve, consider cocktails that can be made up in quantities ahead of time, says Josh Harris, co-founder with Scott Baird of The Bon Vivants, a San Francisco-based cocktail, hospitality, marketing and design consulting firm. This could mean whipping up classic batch drinks, such as punches, in advance, then setting them out so guests can serve themselves.

“Last year, I set up an old fashioned bar and had apple spice syrup on hand for people who preferred a flavored cocktail,” says Harris.

Mix it up

Want to take a more freewheeling approach? That can be easier — and less expensive — than you think.

Start with a couple bottles of your favorite base spirits. “And don’t just buy the cheapest bottle; buy what you like,” says Baird. “No matter what you spend, it’s going to be cheaper than going out to a bar and paying for drinks there.”

And don’t forget to pay attention to the quality of the mixers. “When you pour a drink, it’s often made two-thirds or more of the mixer and you should use a mixer of the same quality as your spirits,” points out Jordan Silbert, founder of Q Drinks.

For the simplest of parties, he recommends getting a few different styles of gin, lemon and lime garnishes and good quality tonic.

Or, go with vodka and along with tonic put out the ingredients for Moscow mules (vodka, ginger beer, lime juice, mint for muddling and as a garnish). Q Drinks has a spicy ginger beer that comes in a frosted bottle, the same type used for white wine, that “looks gorgeous,” says Silbert. “Everybody is going to think you did everything to the nines where you really just bought two nice bottles of liquid.”

Dabble in decor

Chances are your 800-square-foot city apartment doesn’t come with a fully stocked wet bar. And even a bigger place can feel cramped if the only place to mix drinks is a crowded kitchen table.

Julie Richard, design expert at Ace Hardware, recommends repurposing a piece of furniture as a bar. If you want to go all out, you could paint an old credenza in a bright color, or just use an existing table and cover it with a good-looking cloth.

Bookcases are another option. If the top is too narrow to work as a mixing station, set a table close by, says Richards; you don’t want guests juggling glassware. You may need to take out some of the shelves to make room for tall bottles; if you’re feeling ambitious, gluing a mirror on the back of the shelf where it will reflect your gleaming bottles is a nice touch.

Trays are a good shortcut to keeping things neat and under control. You might have one for bottles, one for glasses, another for bowls of garnishes.