Have Bar Gear, Will Travel
While serious bartenders tend to assemble their tools piecemeal, we layfolk often fall for the convenience of bar-in-a-box type sets. The problem with those? They generally stink. Not so with this one, a collaboration between Bombay Sapphire and New York-based fashion label Barking Irons. It includes high-quality, professional grade tools that you’ll see behind the bar of any craft-centric cocktail joint: a Boston shaker, a hefty Hawthorne strainer, an elegant Japanese bar spoon, a citrus squeezer. It even includes more esoteric bar items like a bird’s-nest double strainer used to remove small shards of ice from a shaken drink (to keep the cocktail from getting too diluted) and an ice pick, should you be interested in mastering the art of carving huge globes of ice for your Scotch. And the bag itself, modeled after an antique doctor’s bag, is gorgeous. The exterior is a buttery soft, leather and the interior is a striking sapphire-blue waxed canvas. It practically begs you to make a martini. $495, barkingirons.com
—
Kevin Sintumuang


