Joe's Speakeasy

Wow...my recent blog post about our new project garnered quite a response!  Lots of your comments on facebook made Joe and I laugh.  Thank you.

It got me thinking about one of Joe's other loves.  Cocktails.

Our bar on the kitchen counter

It all started several years ago.  For Joe's 50th birthday, he wanted to host a cocktail party.  The kind of party where he could create any drink his guests requested.  So in true Joe fashion, he began to prepare months in advance.  He bought a cocktail recipe book.  He mail-ordered all manner of cocktail glasses.  He bought many, many bottles of assorted liquors and liqueurs.  He purchased mixing paraphernalia: jiggers, shakers, specialty ice cube trays, bitters.

The irony is Joe hardly drinks.  So he tested his cocktails out on me.

Joe's glassware collection

An assortment of some of his vintage glasses

But also in true Joe fashion, he tends to go overboard.  We have enough booze in this house to sink a ship.  Well, maybe not a ship.  But a dinghy for sure.  (Seeing as it was Christmas a few short weeks ago so Joe and I, along with our guests, did a fair bit of damage to his ample alcohol supply.)

Joe doesn't have a proper bar.  He stores his bottles on a shelf in the closet of our spare bedroom.

 The left-hand side of the closet shelf

 The right-hand side of the closet shelf

Many cocktails Joe makes require bitters.  So we have more than our fair share of those too.  (For the uninitiated, just a few drops of bitters go into each drink.  We have enough bottles to last a lifetime.)

There are five bottles of bitters alongside the shiitake mushrooms in the laundry room cupboards.

What's this?  Just a wooden tray of bitters I found under the bed in the spare room. 

If you ever find yourself in need of a drink, especially if it requires bitters, you now know where to come.

Cheers!