Every straight white male is forced, character-creation-screen-style, to choose one overtly consumptive hobby that in some small part defines their twenties and – God willing — their enduring adulthood. Some choose sourdough; many choose barbecue; I chose mixology.

(A psychologist might suspect that this was in no small part due to being legally underage during my undergraduate years, and having a choice in extracurricular activity that precluded me from carrying a fake ID; a hagiographer might pinpoint the first cocktail I ever had (a Manhattan, mixed by the parents of my best friend in a hotel room during Parents' Weekend).)

Whatever the reason, I owe a not-insignificant amount of my blessed life to cocktails. The first-ever thing I sold on the internet was a cocktail app for iOS, planting the seed for later, more foolish attempts to sell things on the internet; I wowed and wooed my now-wife with a butterfly pea blossom-infused martini ^[1] which impressed her enough to go out with me again.

Maybe it's hindsight, but most cocktail writing on the internet is not particularly helpful. It's either Dave Arnold-style postmodernism ^[2], recipe analysis with little foundational insight that one would get from a couple years as a barback, or (particularly recently) recipe/bottle porn. What I wish I had was a list of now-obvious tips for keeping and running a home bar, and here is where I will keep them:

1. When mixing a conventional cocktail, start by pouring the most viscous ingredients first (syrups, liqueuers, etc.). Subsequent ingredients will help wash out the viscous ones from the jigger.
2. Two drops of saline in anything with citrus. (Four in an espresso martini.)
3. Freezer martinis (or other such drinks) are terrific. Be sure to put in around 1/8oz of water for each serving to dilute the drink in the same way that ice would.
4. Tovolo for ice cubes, unless you have the freezer space to justify making clear ice.
5. Always try a "perfect" version of something with more vermouth than you expect to be palatable.
6. Freezing citrus works really well — as does super juicing — but sometimes the point of the tea ceremony is the ceremony and not the tea itself.
7. It's absolutely fine to build old-fashioneds (and riffs thereof) in the glass.
8. Dry shake anything with protein.
9. Scaffas can be tricky to balance, and you often want to err on the sweeter, heavier side. (Bitters are particularly important.)
10. The point of a hobby is to be a dork.