56
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
MAY | JUNE 2014
“I think it’s easy to see how much Rouses
cares about wine and spirits just by their
offerings. Compare them to any other
grocery store and you’ll see that there
is some serious thought and care put
into what they source. I watched Donny
Rouse taste test through over 20 barrels
of Buffalo Trace Bourbon just to find the
right one for his stores, so you know the
commitment comes from the top down.”
—Neal Bodenheimer
the
Chef
issue
Best in Glass
I
’ll admit it. When I asked Neal
Bodenheimer to send me a snapshot of his
home bar, I had a few preconceived notions.
But there were no china cabinets overloaded
with small-batch Caribbean rums. No
dedicated rye whiskey wing. Just a tight,
well-tended collection of (mostly brown)
liquors. Nice rums. Three Irish selections.
Two kinds of bitters.
[Bodenheimer explained his first principle
in building a great home bar: Make it Your
Own.]
As an owner and creative force behind some
of New Orleans’ best cocktail bars — Cure,
Belloq, Cane & Table among them —
Bodenheimer spends a lot of time studying
the craft and chemistry of a well-made drink.
“On any given day, I’ve got a lot of great
bottles at my disposal,” he says. “I spend
a lot of my day thinking about booze, but
when I come home, I’m not going to mix
up a complex cocktail. I’m going to pour
something nice and relax.”
And his home bar reflects this reality with
a tight selection of nice sipping liquors.
Minimal. Appealing. Simple.
Contrast this to the standard approach to
“building a home bar” — a process that
usually precedes a high-stakes dinner or
holiday party. In an attempt to be a good
host and cover all the bases, most folks
adopt a “one of everything” strategy. One
trip to Rouses to fill a cart: fifths of vodka,
gin, bourbon, Scotch, and tequila along with
tonic, club soda, orange juice, cranberry and
a few citrus fruits (limes, lemons, oranges)
for good measure.
This scattershot approach works fine if you
routinely cater bar mitzvas and company
Christmas parties, but for the average home
bartender, it leads to a lot of wasted liquor that
you were never interested in, in the first place.
But a more personalized approach — one
by
Pableaux Johnson +
photos by
Cheryl Gerber
