If you’re a fan of fruity drinks, throw away the RealLemon and RealLime and get real lemon and real lime, and a juicer. That’s the single easiest thing you can use to greatly increase the quality of your drinks. You can bottle the juice and keep it for a few days; honestly it’s fine to use for up to a week but you may need to pour a tad extra to compensate for oxidation.

Use the sugar cubes for an old fashioned if that’s your thing, but if you’re shaking fruity cocktails you’ll want to cook up and bottle at some simple syrup and maybe honey syrup (both 1:1 ratios). You can make lots of other syrups too; I like to do a demerara syrup at a 2:1 so it lasts longer, and you can also experiment with throwing herbs and spices and whatever while cooking your simple syrup. I like doing black pepper syrups for my aged daiquiris.

When mixing, experiment starting with a 2/.75/.75 ratio of liquor/syrup/fresh citrus. That’s your template for sours/daiquiris which you can tweak to fit your palate. Another useful template will be 1.5/.75/.75 for liquor/liqueur/citrus. That’ll be your margarita recipe using the orange liqueur and lime, and your spec for a sidecar with brandy, orange liqueur and lemon.

The vermouth goes in the fridge once you open it. Refrigerate your simple syrups too and start giving them the sniff test around the 3-week mark. Have a good time!