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The concept of the "Five Bottle Bar" has been around for quite some time. It's premise is alluringly minimalist; create a fully appointed bar with just five bottles, one from each of the main cocktail spirits: Vodka, Gin, Whiskey, Rum, and Tequila. Whether constrained by apartment space, money, or as a thought experiment, choosing the perfect five bottles requires building a thorough knowledge of spirits options. In this guide, we'll explore our recommendations for traditional five bottle bar setups at various price points as well as my personal bar picks. After you read, check out our whiskey 5 bottle bar edition.
Rules: Prices will be those available on Total Wine set to Georgia, USA and bottles will are priced at the standard 750ml volume.
Traditional Five Bottle Bar Setups
These will include one of each of the fundamental cocktail spirits at three price points. Note that these prices are only for the liquor, fleshing our your cocktail bar will take a bit more funding to cover equipment, mixers, and other ingredients.
Budget 5 Bottle Bar - $100 or Less
With this lineup, we're going for optimum value, having only an average of $20 to spend on each spirit. As such, this is not a true connoisseur's list. Instead, this budget five bottle lineup strives to deliver optimum "drinkability" which at this price point will mean tradeoffs with flavor, age, and proof. If you are a casual drinker or simply want things on hand for mixing occasionally, this is your pick. The below spirits will do well in a balanced cocktail or on ice though not all will find them to their taste for sipping (though personally I find them all more than serviceable).
- Gin - Bombay Sapphire ($23) - With surprising depth and complexity for the price, you get delicate botanicals with plenty of citrus, pine, juniper, and some light spices. It does fine over ice but does best in classic gin cocktails. It is relatively restrained so casual gin drinkers won't be scared off.
- Rum - Cruzan Aged Dark Rum ($11) - Potentially the best value in all of rum, Cruzan's Aged Dark Rum is a clean and pleasant pour. It's sweet and provides that base rum flavor while the oak casks have helped iron out any major off flavors.
- Tequila - Lunazul Blanco ($22) - Exceptionally light and smooth, this bottle provides fresh agave flavors with a dusting of citrus and floral notes. It is drinkable neat and easy to shoot while providing a tequila mouthfeel. It is relatively easy to overwhelm in cocktails but you won't find much better without spending a good bit more. For best margaritas, stick to the traditional tequila, lime, and triple sec recipes - skip the mix.
- Vodka - Tito's Handmade ($17) - Distilled six times, Tito's is one of the better new American vodkas, particularly if you take price into account. You'll be mixing or shooting this and its perfectly suitable for both.
- Whiskey - Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond ($19) - At 100 proof, Evan Williams White Label stands up well in a cocktail and delivers full on the whiskey lover's expectation of oaky vanilla, caramel, and spice. This is likely the best value bottle in bourbon and drinks on the sweeter side, very approachable.
Total: $92 - Depending on your local sales tax, you might be able to check out with a Benjamin and some change! These are all solid representations of their relevant spirit styles and you could do far worse for the money.
Alternatives: With $7 of cap space, your best alternatives would be upgrading or changing the whiskey. You could go sweeter by switching to a Maker's Mark bourbon, turn to the Emerald Isle with Jameson's Irish whiskey, or swap in Dewar's White Label Scotch. Beefeater Gin would save you five dollars though I feel like it is more polarizing. You also lose the gravitas of Bombay's lovely blue bottle. For a buck more, Espolon Blanco tequila is a better straight sipper but I prefer the Lunazul in margheritas.
Enhanced 5 Bottle Bar - $200 or Less
Bumping up to an allowance around $40 per bottle, we are confronted with a significant increase in spirits to choose from but are still a little short of the true premium offerings. Be careful as the $20-$40 range has the most "traps" where producers are dumping spirits that didn't make the cut for nicer spirits or brands that had a solid flagship and may have slapped together a semi-premium offering. Many potential bottles are not improvements over those mentioned in our budget lineup. This is the point of severely diminishing returns for unaged spirits like vodka and gin. All of these bottles should hold up well neat, on ice, or in a cocktail.
- Gin - The Botanist Islay Dry Gin ($31) - Made by the Bruichladdich Distillery of Scotch fame, the Botanist is a step of from an already very solid budget cast of gins. It has a layered nose with plenty of sophistication to unravel and unveils both botanicals as well as herbs and spices on the palate. At 46% and featuring strong flavors, it performs well both neat and in cocktails.
- Rum - Appleton Estate Reserve 8Yr ($30) - Rum at this price point is very interesting indeed. There are a good number of aged bottles available and some very high proof offerings, but we're not yet to the true aged sippers. Appleton Estate Reserve 8 Year is a Jamaica blend rum that presents layers of flavor while being easy to sip. Look for a surprisingly warm contrasting belly heat, a nice hug.
- Tequila - Espolon Anejo ($38) - A step up from their solid blanco bottle, this tequila is aged for 18 months and delivers on strong agave, black pepper, and earth notes. It is still very smooth and not overbearing. There isn't much in the $30-$50 dollar range that really overperforms as a tequila, but this bottle gives us a smooth sipping aged spirit.
- Vodka - Chopin Potato Vodka ($21) - Another area where you can cap your spending early, Vodka doesn't gain a whole lot over the course of this price range. This polish vodka goes down nicely but has a little bit of bite and earthiness to make it more interesting to drink straight up.
- Whiskey - Wild Turkey Rare Breed ($55) - At this point, we have around $80 left to spend which opens up the vast majority of the whiskey world. Choosing to leave a twenty on the table for tax, I'm staring at Wild Turkey's barrel proof response to Booker's. Widely regarded as one of the best values in whiskey, Rare Breed delivers on spice, flavor, and finish, sure to delight both the experienced palate and the whiskey layman.
Total: $175 - For just short of double the entry level lineup, you get a rocking set of stars that is meaningfully unique. There is a bit of wiggle room here in the budget to suit to your tastes if you prefer one spirit to another.
Alternatives: Gin wise, you're actually fine sticking with the Bombay and Beefeater's of the world, but if you want to pack-a-punch, Plymouth Navy Strength Gin ($39) delivers with firepower at 114 proof. LALO Tequila Blanco ($40) is fantastic and confirmed additive free, one of the better unaged tequilas in the world period, but this is on the upper end of reasonable prices for unaged spirits in my opinion. Hamilton 151 Demerara Rum ($30) is a fantastic value overproof bottle for rum runners. Belvedere vodka ($28) is an interesting example of the rye vodka variety, popular in places where the potato historically is for eating! For whiskey, Maker's Mark Cask Strength ($38) is under our price target and one of the absolute best whiskies on the market, sweet, complex, and uncut. Dewar's Blended 12yr ($32) and Jura Single Malt 10yr ($40) scotches are solid, but you are likely better served by bourbon at this price point, sticking to under forty per.
Premium 5 Bottle Bar - $300 or Less
For an average of $60, you can get the very best of Gin and Vodka alongside very good Tequila and Rum, though it should be noted that the step-up is very incremental from the preceding tier. Whiskey is the only category that can't be truly maxed out, though most bottles outside this range are more for show than anything else in my opinion. This budget pushes the limits of Total Wine inventory and you may be better off shopping specialty retailers or looking for limited releases.
- Gin - Plymouth Gin ($34) - With a blend of seven exotic botanicals, the standard Plymouth offering is tough to improve upon and goes toe-to-toe with bottles double and triple its price. This 41.2% ABV bottle easy easy to mix and drink.
- Rum - Appleton Estate 12Yr ($43) - Strapping on an extra four years over our mid tier selection, this bottle doubles down on everything its younger sibling does well. This is solidly a sipping bourbon and similarly one of the best values in rum, outdone by few if any.
- Tequila - Insolito Anejo ($50) - Aged 18 to 24 months in new oak barrels at the highest altitude distillery in all of Mexico, this blend of highland and lowland agave offers chocolate, dark fruit, and toasted nuts. Additive free.
- Vodka - Elit Vodka ($40) - Stoli's luxury brand, Elit is produced in Riga, Latvia from winter wheat and features freeze filtration for an even smoother feel. There is very little vodka in this world worth more than $30 and this is one of those tiny few bottles that offers a meaningful upgrade.
- Whiskey - Elijah Craig Barrel Proof ($85) - Routinely excellent, this batched barrel proof is released by Heaven Hill thrice annually and almost always places well in "whiskey of the year" lists. Contrasting with single barrels, Elijah Craig Barrel proof can be relied upon to deliver tons of flavor.
Total: $252 - You really start to see the top end of the market with this tier. While it is possible to spend much more on crazy age stated whiskey or uber limited tequila, your dollars are likely better spent moving from five up to ten bottles for variety.
Alternatives: Ben Holladay Rickhouse Bourbon ($84), Redwood Empire Grizzly Beast Bottled-in-Bond ($88), Sagamore Spirit Rye Double Oak ($69), and the Balvenie Caribbean Cask 14yr ($82) are all solid alternatives.
My Picks - Five Bottle Bar for Castle & Cairn
While the preceding sets do a great job of showing the best lineup for a given budget, your own personal habits will make the best fit for you likely something different. For me, I place less value on certain styles and honestly feel the incremental spend is not worth it. You may be entirely different. This is my lineup if you made me walk into the store and come out with five bottles today.
- Gin - Bombay Sapphire ($23) - Yep, I'm buying it because I like the blue bottle and I prefer it to Beefeater. I don't drink gin much and the times someone has asked they have mentioned this bottle specifically. Guess the marketing is good.
- Rum - Cruzan Aged Dark Rum ($11) - Correct, also the cheap one. It's probably getting mixed anyway but I'm not beyond drinking it neat. Give me more bottles as options and I'll pick up a sipper as well but the base function of rum in America is mixology.
- Tequila - Espolon Blanco ($23) - Great for shots and solid in a marg, this is my long time personal pick.
- Vodka - Tito's Handmade ($17) - Are you seeing a trend? Another stalwart mixer joins the team. In reality, I'm getting 1.75L big bottles of all of these for the extra value.
- Whiskey - Old Grand Dad 114 ($30) - Settling on just one whiskey would torture me for days on end and I'm sure I would have second thoughts the minute I walked out. Most of my favorite whiskies I would not even think about putting in a cocktail. A pick that I surprised myself with, Old Grand Dad 114 is flavorful, offers a nice peppery higher rye bourbon mash bill, and packs enough of a punch to show through in cocktails. It sips fine well neat and is a delight on the rocks. It's not overly expensive, so there would be no angst if we worked through it in an evening with a few buddies.
Total: $104 - Manageable on pretty much any budget. This lineup shows that you can have a very solid bar without spending an arm and a leg. In reality, I would set my wallet to $150 and pick up a Mellow Corn ($20) and Dewar's White Label ($25) to round out the team at seven bottles.
Outro
Can't decide what five bottles to pick for your bar? The good news is you don't have to! In the wonderful world of today, variety is the spice of live and there are many great spirits options on the market. Happy hunting!