Spring Cleaning: My N/A Liquor Cabinet

By now you all know that my "unproductive hobby" is non-alcoholic drinks. I've always loved mixology, but never really cared for the alcohol part - now I have the best of both worlds!

I say unproductive hobby because my husband says that all of my hobbies relate back to the business somehow (photography, web design, organizing...), and that I needed a hobby that was just for fun. He's probably right >.<

Anyway, staying true to my one in, one out rule, I work with the space that I've allotted myself within our shared bar and drink fridge. Since the shelf life of most of these non-alcoholic drinks is so much shorter than bottles with alcohol, I opted to purchase myself a designated drink cooler so that I could have more bottles open at a time.

Now that I've been making mixed drinks more regularly, hubs has hopped on the bandwagon and asks for proofed versions of what I'm making myself. This means that my space in our shared bar is slightly smaller.

He gets two shelves in the bar, the top for the bottles he drinks more often, and then the bottom for the less used bottles.

The other two shelves are for my mixers - a bitters lazy susan - I know, but if you have more than a few bottles that you use often, do this - it's a gamechanger! The other shelf is for my syrups and tonic waters. I keep 2-3 cans of tonic water in the fridge ready to go, but keep the rest of the cans in the bar so I can replace them easily as I use them.

My drinks fridge is as follows:
- Top shelf for syrups, cherries, mixers

- Middle shelf for rotating bottles that I'm experimenting with or considering for permanent rotation

- Bottom shelf is for the permanent rotation bottles

Admittedly, the bottom two shelves kind of depend on bottle size or what I'm really hooked on at the moment.

I know that for someone who isn't a bartender that it definitely seems excessive, because when I hobby, I hobby pretty hard. I've never been the type who just likes one thing. I can't do the same protein multiple nights in a row for dinner, and the same goes for my drinks - I want variety.

BUT with dry January sales, etc. I went a little crazy and I actually need to work on spring cleaning. My ultimate goal is to curate the collection to vermouths, 1-2 whiskeys, 1-2 gins, pathfinder, vera herbal (if I can get my hands on it), mezcal, and then a tequila.

Wish me luck >.<