This column is suitable for bartending beginners and home bar enthusiasts. If you want to build a perfect bar at home, remember to come and see it~

Necessary Equipment

1. A sink that can wash and drain vegetables

2. A refrigerator, preferably one that can refrigerate and freeze. The refrigerator can be used to store drinks and juice, and the freezer can be used to store ice cubes.

3. Ice box. Generally, any common ice box size will do. If your home refrigerator is big enough, you can directly buy a fishing refrigerator to freeze super ice cubes.

Related reading:

Bartender Improvement Tips 1: The most comprehensive explanation of ice cubes

Bartender Improvement Tips 2: Use of Ice Cubes

4. Bar counter and chairs, just find a long table and two bar stools.

Are you ready? Let’s start building a bar at home!

Getting started with cocktails is simple. First, you need a bottle of vodka.

Related reading: Vodka

Why start with vodka? Because vodka is alcohol and water, which is the closest to ethanol. No matter what kind of wine you mix, it will always have the taste of alcohol. So let's start with this bottle.

For those who don't drink often, when they first come into contact with vodka, they will definitely think of industrial alcohol in the laboratory or sterilized cotton in the health room. Yes, it is that smell, exactly. So what is the charm of this thing? Perhaps it is the way that alcohol enters your body in the simplest way.

If you have never drunk vodka and don't have a particular preference for a brand, I recommend you choose a bottle of low- to medium-priced vodka, such as the Russian Standa brand:

Standa is not actually a product of the classic old factory. Instead, it is a vodka that is marketed with quite a lot of hype. It claims to be a vodka made with the formula of scientist Mendeleev. In fact, Mendeleev has nothing to do with Standa. He only discovered the periodic table of chemical elements for us.

However, considering the vodka at this price, Standa is indeed a good choice. It has a solid body and low pungent alcohol smell. It is just a standard Russian vodka.

No matter which vodka you buy, please pour a little first and try it out. How does ethanol diluted with water taste? Remember this feeling. If you can't remember it, drink a little more. Don't drink too much, otherwise your mind will be blank the next day and you will have to do it again at night.

For people who don’t drink often, drinking vodka directly is really too much, but it is a necessary process. You may still miss it in the future, thinking that one day you also felt the spicy taste of alcohol!

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, he was the great scientist who created the periodic table.

Because this man had a very strange insistence, he believed that he could only cut his hair once a year, and it had to be in the spring, even if the Tsar wanted to meet him. He wrote a paper on the reaction between alcohol and water in the 19th century. Mendeleev believed that one molecule of ethanol diluted with two molecules of water was the most perfect balance for vodka, so he suggested that the dilution ratio of vodka should be 38% alcohol and 62% water (volume capacity) during the production process.

The quick-witted Standa Distillery immediately stole the joke and insisted that their recipe was inherited from Mendeleev, and even forged Mendeleev's signature on the bottle... In fact, Mendeleev just wanted to tell everyone how much water should be added to dilute vodka to make it taste better.

This story successfully connected a young winery with a scientific myth from the late 19th century. It was not until 2009 that an archaeological study by scholars discovered that they had been deceived.

The regulation to dilute vodka to 40% was promulgated as early as 1843. At that time, vodka in Russia was a state-owned enterprise. In order to facilitate the calculation of liquor tax collection, it was clearly specified that vodka must be 40%. If you dared to make it stronger or weaker, you would be dragged to Red Square and shot.

You have to know that in 1843, Mendeleev was only 9 years old.

Now that you have vodka, you can start trying 1 on 1 cocktails.

What is a 1 on 1 cocktail? It is a drink made by mixing one alcoholic beverage with another soft drink, or both ingredients can contain alcohol. Soft drinks refer to non-alcoholic beverages, such as juice, soda, tea, coffee, etc.

The most famous 1 on 1 vodka cocktail is of course the Screwdriver. Just buy a bottle of orange juice and add the vodka you already have to make your first cocktail - the Screwdriver.

The first cup recommended is the whiskey glass, which is also called the old-fashioned or rock cup. Many people should have it at home because it is the most common cup type for wine gift boxes.