OurBar data
The best 3-bottle home bar
We tested every 3-bottle combination of the 40 most-used bottles against 377 cocktail recipes. Here is the shelf that makes the most drinks, and what to buy after it.
The answer
London Dry Gin, Vodka and Reposado Tequila
48 drinks with a stocked kitchen
That beats every other 3-bottle shelf we tested. The runner-up swaps reposado for blanco tequila and makes 46.
See all 48 on the shelf toolYour grocery store is half your bar
The counts depend on what else is in the kitchen. With only the basics (lemons, limes, sugar, Angostura bitters, soda water, mint and eggs), the best three bottles make 20 drinks. Add one grocery run of juices, sodas, cream, honey, agave and grenadine, and the best three make 48.
What to buy, in order
Each step adds whichever bottle makes the most new drinks. Where two bottles only work together, they appear as a pair. With a stocked kitchen, 12 bottles make 122 drinks, 32% of every recipe we have.
| # | Buy | New | Total | Drinks it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reposado Tequila | +17 | 17 | Paloma, Tequila Sunrise, Ranch Water, Mexican Mule |
| 2 | Vodka | +16 | 33 | Moscow Mule, Screwdriver, Cape Codder, Greyhound |
| 3 | London Dry Gin | +15 | 48 | Gin and Tonic, Tom Collins, Gimlet, Ramos Gin Fizz |
| 4 | Cointreau | +11 | 59 | Margarita, Cosmopolitan, Lemon Drop, Kamikaze |
| 5 | Bourbon | +10 | 69 | Whiskey Sour, Mint Julep, Kentucky Mule, Bourbon Smash |
| 6 | White Rum | +9 | 78 | Mojito, Daiquiri, Long Island Iced Tea, Cuba Libre |
| 7 | Campari | +7 | 85 | Campari and Soda, Campari Orange, Garibaldi, Campari Tonic |
| 8-9 | Sweet Vermouth + Dry Vermouth | +14 | 99 | Negroni, Martini, Boulevardier, Americano |
| 10 | Dark Rum | +9 | 108 | Dark and Stormy, Jungle Bird, Rum Punch, El Presidente |
| 11 | Rye Whiskey | +8 | 116 | Manhattan, Scofflaw, Algonquin, Blinker |
| 12 | Mezcal | +6 | 122 | Oaxaca Old Fashioned, Mezcal Negroni, Mezcal Manhattan, Mezcal Mule |
The best shelf at every size
| Bottles | Best shelf | Stocked | Basics |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reposado Tequila | 17 | 10 |
| 2 | Vodka, Reposado Tequila | 33 | 15 |
| 3 | London Dry Gin, Vodka, Reposado Tequila | 48 | 20 |
| 4 | Reposado Tequila, Vodka, London Dry Gin, Cointreau | 59 | 25 |
| 5 | Reposado Tequila, Vodka, London Dry Gin, Cointreau, Bourbon | 69 | 29 |
“Basics” is the best possible shelf of that size with only the basics in the kitchen, which is often a different set of bottles.
Three things that surprised us
Buy reposado, not blanco
Reposado Tequila is the most useful single bottle: 17 drinks on its own, ahead of Vodka and London Dry Gin. A reposado works in recipes that call for blanco, like a margarita or a paloma, but a blanco cannot stand in where a recipe wants the aged spirit. One bottle covers both.
Sweet vermouth makes nothing alone
It appears in 43 of our recipes, more than any other bottle that is not a base spirit, and makes zero drinks by itself. It only works with partners. Bought together with dry vermouth on a shelf that already has gin, bourbon and Campari, the pair adds 14 drinks, including the Negroni, Martini and Boulevardier.
The first liqueur to buy is Cointreau
On a shelf of London Dry Gin, Bourbon and Vodka, no other liqueur adds more than Cointreau (+6). It is the orange in a margarita, a cosmopolitan and a sidecar. Campari is next with +4.
How we counted
- Recipes. 377 cocktails from the OurBar catalog: classics and modern drinks, all with full specs on our recipe pages. Branded recipe collections are left out.
- A drink counts when the shelf has every required ingredient. Optional lines and garnishes do not count against it.
- Frozen and slushie versions are separate recipes in our catalog, so they count as separate drinks. One of the 48 from the best 3-bottle shelf is a frozen version: the Frozen Paloma.
- Basics are fresh lime and lemon juice, simple syrup, sugar, salt, Angostura bitters, soda water, egg white and mint. A stocked kitchen adds orange, grapefruit, pineapple and cranberry juice, ginger beer, ginger ale, tonic, cola, heavy cream, grenadine, agave syrup and honey. None of these count as bottles.
- Substitutions follow the same short list the shelf tool uses, such as reposado tequila for blanco. They are never the other way down the ageing ladder.
- The search. Every 1, 2 and 3-bottle combination of the 40 bottles used in the most recipes was tested. Four-bottle shelves were tested exhaustively across the 22 strongest single bottles, and the best five-bottle shelf extends the best four. The buying order adds the single bottle, or pair, that adds the most drinks per bottle at each step.
- Data. Counted on October 21, 2026. The raw results are free to use with a link back: stocked kitchen and basics only (JSON).