Technique
Home Bar Essentials: Tools, Bottles and Glassware
A practical guide to setting up a home bar: the tools you need, the bottles that cover most classic cocktails, glassware, ice and fresh ingredients.
Former hotel food and beverage manager
Martin Hale
Martin spent two decades running hotel bars and restaurants and now writes about technique, food pairing and what makes a bar work.
Portrait: Kampus Production / Pexels
Martin Hale spent more than twenty years in hotel food and beverage, starting as a barback and working his way up to bar manager and then director of food and beverage at hotels in London and New York. He has opened bars, written cocktail lists, trained teams and planned more private events than he can count.
His writing focuses on the practical side of drinking well: technique, ice, glassware, vermouth, food pairing, hosting, and the details of service and design that make some bars unforgettable. He believes good hospitality is mostly about paying attention.
At Pleiades he writes our technique guides, our food and pairing pieces and our essays on bar culture. He still makes a very precise martini and refuses to let anyone keep vermouth on a warm shelf.
Articles by Martin
Bar Culture
What Makes a Great Hotel Bar? Notes from a Former Bar Manager
A former hotel food and beverage manager on what separates a great hotel bar from an ordinary one: light, seating, service, music, menus and memory.
Technique
Spices in Cocktails: Syrups, Infusions and Winter Warmth
How to use spices in cocktails: syrups, infusions, tinctures, rims and garnishes, which spices pair with which spirits, and recipes for spiced syrups.
Technique
A Practical Guide to Vermouth: Styles, Storage and Serving
Everything you need to know about vermouth: how it is made, sweet, dry and blanc styles, Turin and Chambéry, how to store it and how to drink it.
Technique
Le Potager: Foraged and Garden Botanicals in Cocktails
How bartenders use garden herbs and foraged plants in cocktails: syrups, infusions and garnishes, which plants are worth trying, and the safety rules that matter.
Technique
Ice Is an Ingredient: A Practical Guide to Cocktail Ice
Why ice matters in cocktails: dilution and chilling, shaking versus stirring, the right ice for each drink, and how to make clear ice at home.
Food & Pairing
L'Apéro: A Guide to the French Aperitif Hour
What the French aperitif is, which drinks to serve (vermouth, Suze, Lillet, pastis, spritzes, Kir), what to eat with them and how to host l'apéro at home.
Bar Culture
Black, White and Gold: How Art Deco Shaped the Cocktail Bar
Why so many great cocktail bars look Art Deco: the 1925 Paris exhibition, lacquer, mirrors, geometry, lighting and the design lessons any bar can borrow.
Food & Pairing
Pairing Cocktails with Food: A Practical Guide for the Table
A practical guide to pairing cocktails with food: matching weight and intensity, using acidity, bitterness and spice, and examples from oysters to dessert.