Whether you own a restaurant, a pub, or a hotel, a crucial part of your income will come from alcohol sales. Most establishments that sell alcohol usually operate a bar to service drinks. This of course means that at some point, either now or in the future, you’re going to have to buy new bar equipment.
The kinds bar equipment you are going to need to serve beverages - and your bartenders are going to need in order to do their jobs - can be divided into three classes. The first category, hardware, includes all things mechanized. This ranges from your coolers to your ice machine to your beer tap system. Glassware is obviously the second category. It would be unfeasible to serve beverages without some kind of bar glasses. Barware is the third category, and even though it doesn’t look like it at first, it could be the most essential.
Barware is a universal term used to describe all those vital tools that are so crucial to the job of a bartender. This category encompasses everything cocktail shakers to cork screws to bottle openers to zesting tools The trouble is that when you cut corners on the restaurant barware you purchase, you run the risk of serving low quality drinks regardless of how talented your bartenders are or how fine the quality of your liquor is. So before you buy accessories for your bar, here are a few rules you should follow.
- Try and find an insulated cocktail shaker if you can. The colder your cocktails are when you serve them, the better they will be. If you choose a Boston shaker you want to be sure you also get a hawthorn strainer.
- For cutting lemon twist garnishes, a good quality channel or decorating does a better job than a zester.
- Nothing is more unappetizing than finding bits of cork in your wine, so invest in a wine opener you can depend upon.
- Buy a wall-mounted bottle opener if you can. You are going to lose more of the hand-held kind than you are going to like.
- Because portion control is everything, be sure you have a few double jiggers or spirit measures around.
To learn more about barware, visit Hospitality Direct, Australia’s #1 Hospitality Superstore!
