It’s not often you’ll hear me say this – but Pinterest lies! It sells massive lies and it offers no solutions!
Now, I love Pinterest, probably more than the next person, but occasionally I find a flaw with the beautiful pictures, the wonderfully styled rooms and abundant DIY’s projects. And one of these flaws can be found when you search Bar Carts.
Yes, your brass bar cart might look stunning but it’s wholly impractical unless you’re planning on only drinking G&T’s, or Vodka & San Peligrino from crystal coupe glasses for the rest of your life. And who wants to do that? No-one. Because everyone wants options. And cocktails!
In reality your bar should house collections of gins and whiskies, enough bottles of rum for making Zombies with, ingredients for a Martini or two, appropriate glasswear for most situations and accessories. Where are these in your perfectly curated bar corners? Where are the 4 different flavours of bitters? And the jugs for mixing an old fashioned? Or the cocktail syrups and the maraschino cherries? Surely there is just no point having a bar area if you’re not going to keep it fully stocked and ready for a party?
I have blogged before about our home bar area and in those days it was far smaller and much prettier! Recently 8 bottles of Monin cocktail syrups turned up at our house, which along with the champagne coupes we picked up in Toronto, even more bottles of whisky that Jim bought on his last few flights and the Gin I recently acquired, means we now officially have a problem of where to put everything.
See – our drinks cabinet is looking more of a sprawling massive mess than a curated corner! But it’s an impressive collection isn’t it?
And Pinterest gives no help on how to contain and style this mess without building a fully functioning bar in the basement. Which I wouldn’t be adverse to, only our basement is full of junk, like the boot panel for a mark II Golf (free to a good home btw!) and it’s probably a little out of our price range right now – mostly because all our money goes on creating a fully stocked bar!
One of the problems we have is that the kitchen gives us no cupboard space at all so all the glassware (and as I’ve mentioned before, appropriate glassware is a big thing in our house) for drinks has to be stored with the drinks. And then the other big problem is the vast quantity of stuff we have. I mean, there is even a neon bar sign we can bust out of needs be. But as I have stated before, what’s the point in doing a drinks corner if you’re not going to do it properly?
See – this isn’t a ‘well stocked’ bar! It might look beautiful, but it’s just not going to work for making cocktails is it? Is it a classic case of style over substance? Image from The Every Girl.
So now I am looking for solutions for an ever growing drinks situation. Something that won’t be ugly. I don’t think I am quite ready for the 70’s mammoth drinks cabinet of my parents house but our sideboard just isn’t cutting it any more!
Help, where do you keep your ever growing collection of booze? You do have one, don’t you?