All professions have tools, and in the cocktail world, one bartender stands out on the subject of bar tools: Jerry “Professor” Thomas.
Thomas published the first American cocktail recipe book in 1862, and he is well known for traveling the world with a set of solid silver bar tools.

 

In the late 1700s to early 1800s, bar tools included punch bowls, silver ladles, citrus reamers and strainers, knives, nutmeg graters, spoons, small wine glasses for measuring, large containers to be used as measuring cups, pestles and mortars, sugar loaf nibs, and a muddler. In the late 1800s, bar tools improved and were patented.

 

Only a few tools are needed to make great cocktails and, in a pinch, you can even find substitutes in your kitchen drawers. Sure, you can shake up a cocktail in a lidded Mason jar and strain it through your fingers, but if you want to get serious about cocktail making, then invest in a few tools.

After all, nobody ever looked professional straining a Martini through their fingers.

 

Barspoon

A barspoon is a long-handled spoon used to stir cocktails, layer drinks, measure small amounts, spoon ingredients such as sugar, and even help coax a thick frozen drink out of a blender pitcher. Martinis, Manhattans, Sazeracs, and other spirit-forward cocktails are traditionally stirred rather than shaken.

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Barspoons come in several lengths and styles, but the three basic types are:

American — Usually shorter and simpler, with a twisted handle and often a small plastic or rubber cap on the end. It's the inexpensive workhorse of the family.
 

European — Typically sturdier, with a twisted handle and a flat disc on the end. The disc can be used to muddle sugar, lightly crush ingredients, crack ice, or help with layering.

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Japanese — Usually longer, thinner, and beautifully balanced, with a tightly twisted shaft. The end commonly has a weighted teardrop or a small fork/trident. The teardrop acts as a counterweight and makes the spoon especially smooth to stir with.

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You'll find barspoons in different lengths, generally from about 8 to 20 inches, although around 12 inches is a practical everyday size. Longer spoons are handy for tall mixing glasses, pitchers, and large-format drinks.

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About those ends: Teardrops provide weight and balance; flat discs can muddle or crush; forks and tridents can grab olives, cherries, and other garnishes. Some decorative ends are simply there to look pretty.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the trident. I once managed to get one caught under the skin of my wrist.

We'll leave it at that.

The teardrop and I have enjoyed a much healthier relationship.

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How to Stir

Add the cocktail ingredients to a mixing glass, then add ice. Hold the spoon loosely between your middle and ring fingers and keep the back of the bowl against the inside wall of the glass as you smoothly rotate the ice rather than beating it around.

About 10-20 revolutions is a good starting point. No need to keep going until the cocktail gets dizzy.

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The goal is to chill and properly dilute the drink without introducing much air. Unlike a shaken cocktail, a stirred cocktail isn’t heavily aerated, so it feels soft, smoother, and silky on the tongue.

Think velvet, not bubbles.

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Layering with a barspoon

Liquids have different densities, which allows some ingredients to float on top of others.

For example, to layer Irish cream over coffee liqueur, fill half the shot glass with coffee liqueur, then slowly pour the Irish cream over the bowl of a barspoon.

The spoon breaks the fall and helps the lighter ingredient settle gently on top.

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Some bartenders use the concave side of the spoon, others use the curved back, and I've even seen bartenders pour down the twisted handle for a little showmanship.

However you do it, slow is the secret. Gravity is doing most of the bartending.
Good to know: Goodcocktails.com made an alcohol gravity/density chart.

 

Bottle Opener

A bottle opener opens bottles. Back in the day, they were called churchkeys. There are many to choose from. They come in all colors and styles, with retractable reels, belt hooks, and so much more. Speed Openers are also called Bar Blades. They're flat openers with a thumb hole at one end and a letterbox cut at the other. 

⮕ My all-time favorite is a bottle opener ring for my middle finger. I love that it's always with me, doesn't get in my way, and I don't need to go digging in a pocket or backbar somewhere. But you should always have a wine tool in your pocket too.  —SHOP

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Channel Knife

A channel knife cuts long, thin spiral ribbons from citrus peel for cocktail garnishes. The best kind is a quality vertical channel knife.

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And every channel knife should have its lifelong companion: a small pocket conical fish-hook sharpener. Give the blade a few passes whenever it starts getting dull, and a good channel knife can last practically forever.

These two belong together. Buy them as a couple and never separate them.

• Quality vertical channel knife with great reviews. —SHOP

• Its faithful little sidekick, the sharpener. —SHOP

 

Citrus Squeezer/PRESS

A citrus squeezer, also called a citrus press, extracts fresh juice from lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruit. They come in handheld, manual countertop, and electric versions.

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Personally, I’m not a fan of squeezing citrus by hand, so I don’t have a hand press to recommend. An electric citrus juicer gets my vote because it’s fast, easy, and I find I get more juice from the fruit.

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You don't normally see an electric juicer sitting behind the bar. In a professional operation, the heavy juicing is generally done during prep in the back. Since 2010, I've worked with fresh citrus juice prepped daily and ready to go behind the bar—no squeezing a lime every time somebody orders a Daiquiri.

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And now we have Super Juice, which can dramatically extend fresh citrus and reduce the amount of fruit needed. See my Mixers page for more about Super Juice.

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Even at home, I use a small residential electric citrus juicer.

Apparently, I’ll squeeze citrus. I just prefer electricity to do the squeezing. 😄

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Cocktail Smoker

There are all kinds of cocktail smokers, and over the years I think I've tried just about all of them—smoking boards, glass domes, elaborate glass boxes with doors on both sides, handheld smokers with battery-operated blowers and hoses, and some pretty serious puttin'-on-a-show setups. I've even drilled holes into things like little treasure chests just to see what I could smoke a cocktail in.

After all that experimenting, I've come full circle.

I like simple.

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I remember being right in the middle of the cocktail-smoking craze when the owner of SmokeTop® sat at my bar and showed me his little invention. No batteries. No blower. No hose. No contraption taking up half the bar.

It was simply a wooden top that sat over the drinking glass or mixing glass. Add a pinch of wood chips, hit them with a torch, and suddenly the smoke was naturally being pulled down into the glass.

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My bartenders and I were fascinated.

The clever part was that it worked using basic convection and pressure differences. The burning wood heats the air above the glass; as the smoke and air move and cool, the denser smoke is drawn downward into the cooler glass. No little electric fan needed to shove it in there.

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Science was apparently perfectly capable of smoking my cocktail without batteries.

I've been sold on the simple smoker-top style ever since. It's quick, takes up almost no room behind the bar, and still gives the guest that little bit of theater when the smoke pours into the glass.

Because after trying every elaborate smoking contraption I could get my hands on,

I learned something:

Sometimes the best bar tool is the one that doesn't need an instruction manual, batteries, a hose, and its own zip code.
Designed for bartenders, by bartenders.

⮕ My favorite cocktail smoker, SmokeTop®. —SHOP​

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Corkscrew / Waiter’s Tool / Wine Key

A wine key opens wine bottles and those occasional stubborn corks on whiskey bottles.

Bartenders, servers, and wine stewards favor this style because it’s double-levered, giving you two stages of leverage to smoothly pull a cork. It also has a bottle opener and a small folding knife for cutting wine foil—and, in the real world, slicing through the plastic wrap, seals, and packaging on newly opened spirit bottles.
Eventually one of these permanently lives in your pocket.

• See it on YouTube.  
• You can get these on the cheap, but why not treat yourself to one a
little nicer. —SHOP

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Grater / Microplane

A Microplane is a long, fine stainless-steel grater used behind the bar to grate fresh spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon, or to zest citrus. Hold it directly over the finished drink and grate—the fresh aroma hits the guest before the first sip. Classic cocktails finished with freshly grated nutmeg include Milk Punch and the Brandy Alexander.

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Good to know: Freshly grated nutmeg is far more aromatic than the pre-ground stuff. A little goes a long way, so you're garnishing the cocktail—not making pumpkin pie.
 

⮕ My favorite small grater has a built-in storage compartment—basically a tiny studio apartment where the nutmeg lives with his roommate, a half-stick of cinnamon. The rent is reasonable. —SHOP

ice tools

These are the ice tools that Camper "Iceman" English recommends and uses.
• Get his Ice Book or Kindle and learn to make clear ice at home or your bar. —SHOP
• High-quality 3-pronged ice pick for cutting up blocks of ice. —SHOP

• Cheap 3 3-pronged ice pick. —SHOP
• Anvil ice pick. —SHOP     

• Monogram Ice Stamp. —SHOP
• Ice designer tray. —SHOP            
• Watermelon knife for cutting up blocks of ice. —SHOP      
• Wooden mallet to help with the watermelon knife. —SHOP        

 

Jigger

A two-sided measurement tool to measure alcohol for cocktails. They come in about five different sizes. But if you can only buy two, get 1­–2 ounce and 1.5–.5 ounce jiggers.

lewis bag

A heavy-duty canvas bag and wooden mallet used to hand-crush ice for cocktails. 
• Lewis bag kit. —SHOP      

 

Muddler

A muddler crushes and mashes fruit, sugar cubes, herbs, and other ingredients to release their flavors into a drink.

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First, retire those old-school varnished or lacquered wooden muddlers. If you can see that the finish has worn off, ask yourself one simple question:

Where do you think it went? Duh.

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Today, muddlers come in wood, stainless steel, silicone, and plastic, with either flat or toothed working ends.

I honestly can't remember the last time I muddled a drink. Apparently, my muddler has become one of the lonelier little helpers in my bar-tool drawer.

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But when I did use one regularly, I preferred teeth. They're great for citrus and other firm fruits. With delicate herbs such as mint, however, go easy—you want to gently press and release the aromatic oils, not pulverize the leaves and bring out bitter, vegetal flavors.

Mint needs a massage. Limes can take the beating.
• If I did buy a muddler, I'd actually get this 12" wooden saurkraut pounder

with a textured base. —SHOP    

 

Shaker Tin

A shaker is used to shake a drink. You can find novelty shakers in many shapes, but they all break down into two types: cobbler and Boston.

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Cobbler shakers consist of three pieces and are mostly used by home enthusiasts. But I see a lot of Japanese bartenders like them too.

Boston shakers consist of two components pieced together to shake a drink—normally a sixteen-ounce mixing pint glass and a twenty-eight-ounce shaker tin. It's much quicker than a Cobbler shaker.

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​​Strainer

A strainer keeps ice and other shaken ingredients from falling into the glass. Bartenders today use three types of strainers: Hawthorne, julep, and fine mesh.

    

• Hawthorne Strainers have a metal coil and can be used over a shaker tin or a mixing glass.

• Julep strainers fit at an angle into a mixing glass.

• Fine Mesh Strainers are used as a “double strainer”—meaning that it’s held over the glass and used as a second strainer while pouring into the glass from a Boston or julep strainer. It catches seeds or small bits before they go into the drink.

⮕ My favorite strainer is a Hawthorne with a built-in fine mesh strainer. Genius! —SHOP

 

 

Wide Peeler

A wide peeler cuts broad strips of citrus peel for twists, expressed peels, and other cocktail garnishes.
 

My all-time favorite is the Titan Peeler. Yes, it was one of those “As Seen on TV” gadgets—and they got me. I've been hooked ever since. It was usually sold as a set with a second julienne peeler, and that carbon-steel blade made quick work of citrus.

Sadly, the Titan has been “currently unavailable” on Amazon for what feels like forever. 😢 People are even selling used ones on eBay.

Apparently, my favorite peeler has become a collectible.

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Here's the original Titan YouTube infomercial in all its As Seen on TV glory.

Until the Titan decides to make a comeback, I recommend Ina Garten's favorite: the Kuhn Rikon Original Swiss Peeler. Like my Titan, it has a carbon-steel blade. It's inexpensive, lightweight, comfortable to hold, and comes in lots of colors. Ina has said she replaces hers about once a year.

I'm linking the black one because apparently even my vegetable peelers have a dress code.

• Kuhn Rikon Original Swiss Peeler. — SHOP

 

Zester w/channel knife
This 2-in-1 tool creates citrus zest and ribbon twists. Grate the end with the five holes on the citrus to make zest. In the bar, it's mostly used to decorate lime rinds with scored lines. See the photos in the link.

• OXO Good Grips Citrus Zester With Channel Knife. — SHOP

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