Build your gin cocktail home bar for under £100 Part I

A home bar to be envious of tops the list of all home improvements of the dedicated spirits drinker. But building one can seem a daunting - not to mention, expensive - task. It need not be so! You can bring the ingredients for many classic gin cocktails together for surprisingly little cost with a 4-cocktail bar starting at under £40 with a standard gin. 

In Part I of this two part series (here's the link to Part II), we take a look at 3 bars with cocktail lists that gradually build on each other, eventually covering five classic gin cocktails. 

Although we are a “Craft” Gin Club and love tasting and sending our members all of the incredible gins being produced by independent distillers, we’ve opted with the two market-standard brands which remain benchmark gins for bartenders and have different flavour profiles - Beefeater and Tanqueray - for the sake of simplicity.  

We’ve also assumed that you have sugar in the house as some of the cocktails call for simple syrup which only costs a few pence worth of sugar. Lemons, limes, sparkling water and tonic water, however, are not a given and have thusly been added to the cost. 

Let us know if you think of any other ways of juggling these ingredients and costs to build your home gin cocktail bar. We’d love to hear your thoughts! We'll be back next week with more tips and more cocktails. In the meantime, enjoy building your starter bar and cheers for your first cocktail!

Make a 4-cocktail bar for under £40

Here’s the barebones basics. £40 will set you up with enough variety and stock to serve a small group of friends for an evening with easy-to-make yet just the same, classic gin cocktails with standard gin. The citrus fruits can be used for their juice and slices for garnish.

Cocktails

• G&T
• Gimlet
• Gin Fizz
• Tom Collins

G&T

Gimlet

Gin Fizz

Tom Collins

Ingredients

• Beefeater - £17.77
• Limes - £1.50 for 6
• Lemons - £1.50 for 4
• Sparkling Water - £1 for 1 litre
• Tonic Water - £17.18 for 1x 24 case of 200ml Fever Tree Indian Tonic

Beefeater - £17.77

Limes - £1.50 for 6

Lemons - £1.50 for 4

Sparkling Water - £1 for 1 litre

Tonic Water - £17.18 for 1x 24 case of 200ml Fever Tree Indian Tonic

Total: £38.95

Make a 5-cocktail bar for under £50

A staple of any bar is its bitters. With wide ranges of flavours, a couple of dashes of the concentrated liquids can make or break your cocktail. Bitters can be made as home as well but for the purpose of convenience, we’ve added the world’s most popular bitters, Angostura, to this cocktail bar. With the addition of bitters to your gin cocktail bar, you can now make the classic cocktail Pink Gin which is just a few dashes of bitters with straight gin on ice. It can’t get any simpler. You can also make a Pink G&T - just add a couple more dashes! 

Cocktails

• G&T
• Gimlet
• Gin Fizz
• Tom Collins
• Pink Gin

G&T

Gimlet

Gin Fizz

Tom Collins

Pink Gin

Ingredients

• Beefeater - £17.77
• Limes - £1.50 for 6
• Lemons - £1.50 for 4
• Sparkling Water - £1 for 1 litre
• Tonic Water - £17.18 for 1x 24 case of 200ml Fever Tree Indian Tonic
• Angostura Bitters (200ml) - £10

Beefeater - £17.77

Limes - £1.50 for 6

Lemons - £1.50 for 4

Sparkling Water - £1 for 1 litre

Tonic Water - £17.18 for 1x 24 case of 200ml Fever Tree Indian Tonic

Angostura Bitters (200ml) - £10

Total: £48.95

Make a 6-cocktail Martini bar for under £70 with Premium gin

Winston Churchill may have simply bowed in the direction of France in homage to vermouth instead of actually adding it to his gin martini, but most people will agree that just the right amount of vermouth will perfectly complement your gin and make you feel like you’re drinking with the stars. We’ve added the most classic of all cocktails to make the 6th cocktail on this list with Dolin’s Dry Vermouth, one of the most respected on the market by bartenders across the globe. Also, it’s important to use a top-tier gin for a martini so we’ve added the premium Beefeater 24 to the ingredients (although it’s best served in a G&T with a slice of grapefruit). For a more citrus-led premium gin add £7 or £8 and opt for Tanqueray 10. 

Cocktails

• G&T
• Gimlet
• Gin Fizz
• Tom Collins
• Pink Gin
• Martini

G&T

Gimlet

Gin Fizz

Tom Collins

Pink Gin

Martini

Ingredients

• Beefeater 24 - £23.09
• Limes - £1.50 for 6
• Lemons - £1.50 for 4
• Sparkling Water - £1 for 1 litre
• Tonic Water - £17.18 for 1x 24 case of 200ml Fever Tree Indian Tonic
• Angostura Bitters (200ml) - £10
• Dolin Dry Vermouth: £13.09

Beefeater 24 - £23.09

Limes - £1.50 for 6

Lemons - £1.50 for 4

Sparkling Water - £1 for 1 litre

Tonic Water - £17.18 for 1x 24 case of 200ml Fever Tree Indian Tonic

Angostura Bitters (200ml) - £10

Dolin Dry Vermouth: £13.09

Total: £67.36