Bespoke Bar Storage

A finished bar can look complete from the outside while still working badly, if the storage inside it has not been planned around what actually needs to live there. We start the internal layout by asking what a household keeps and how they use it — a large spirits collection, an evening's worth of wine, a full set of cocktail equipment, or simply glasses and a couple of favourite bottles — because the answer changes the storage almost entirely.

Bottle storage divides broadly into upright shelving for spirits and angled or racked storage for wine, and we rarely mix the two on the same shelf without a reason. Spirits stand more comfortably upright, at a spacing that suits the range of bottle heights actually owned rather than a single generic gap. Wine kept within a bar's storage, rather than a dedicated cellar, is usually better lying flat to keep corks moist and away from vibration.

Glass storage is its own category of problem, since coupes, tumblers, wine glasses and highball glasses all need different depths and, ideally, different orientations of shelf. We measure the actual glassware being stored rather than assuming a standard glass size, which avoids the common problem of shelving that is either too shallow for stemware or wastes height on tumblers.

Drawers do most of the unglamorous work — cocktail equipment, bar spoons, openers, linen, coasters and the smaller accessories that clutter a counter if left out. We line drawers to suit their contents, from felt for glassware to simple fitted trays for bar tools, and size the drawers themselves to what needs to fit rather than a standard depth.

Concealed cabinets take the overflow — spare stock, boxes, less commonly used serving pieces — and are positioned where they can be reached without disturbing the display sections in daily use. This keeps the visible parts of the bar tidy because there is somewhere proper for everything that does not need to be on show.

Wine storage within a bar's cabinetry is usually modest in scale compared with a dedicated wine room, sized for what is kept on hand for immediate use rather than a serious collection. Where wine storage is the main priority, our wine storage and wine rooms & cellars pages cover that in more depth.

Display sections sit alongside the closed storage, usually glazed or open shelving for bottles or glassware worth showing, lit to draw attention without needing to compete with the storage around it.

Lighting throughout the internal storage is planned as part of the layout rather than added afterwards, since a well-lit interior makes finding a specific bottle or glass at the end of the evening considerably easier.

Part of our home bars collection