Barware Favorites ft. The Modest Cellar

If you are a wine lover or want to level up your bar offerings, look no further than The Modest Cellar! We follow them for wine recommendations, but just knew they’d have the right lineup for bar accessories too. They’ve sourced some stylish and practical favorites for us and we couldn’t be more thrilled to share!

If you haven’t become acquainted with The Modest Cellar, we recommend you check them out on Instagram, their website, or peruse their Amazon shop. And while you are at it, be sure you are ready to screenshot their wine recommendations for your next shopping trip!

the modest cellar

Who is behind the Modest Cellar? 

We are Carina + Molly, two wine-loving best friends! Follow our journey as we dive deeper into the world of wine and share our favorite wines, wine accessories, places, and styles! We look forward to all of the new opportunities and friendships along the way! Cheers! 

Go- to tips for collecting drinkware: 

When you first start purchasing glassware, your first set should contain at least 6 glasses and be for your favorite wine specifically or be a universal glass. Linked are two wine glasses from Amazon that work for all red wines and for all white wines. If you have limited storage or are trying to keep spending to a minimum, I suggest starting with these and expanding from there with time. 

If you are a glassware collector like myself and invest in seasonal or special occasion glassware, I recommend keeping the original boxes, as these make great storage options for your glasses. Even just my stemless Williams Sonoma etched wine glasses are stored in the boxes in our hall closet when I am not using them. 

Tips for serving drinks to guests:

Set up a drink station with a variety of options. If you are hosting brunch/early afternoon get-together, set up a mimosa station with lots of different juice options, or maybe a Bloody Mary bar! Or serve Kir Royale as an aperitif, Carina’s favorite. If you are not familiar with this, a Kir Royale is Champagne, a little crème de cassis, and a lemon twist for garnish. Both of the party buckets here and here would be great to keep your champagne cold! If you are hosting an afternoon/evening event, prepare a batch cocktail ahead of time for easy serving alongside your bubbles and wine! Serve the cocktail using one of the drink dispensers (here and here) that match the Champagne chillers!

Also, to keep track of everyone’s glasses, if we are not using our Estelle multicolored set, we are using these wine charms.

How to instantly impress your guests:

If you really want to impress your guests, try sabering! It is super fun and super easy. My tips to a successful saber are making sure the bottle is ice cold, finding the seam, and running the knife along that seam. Should make for a clean break! We plan to make a reel showing how to safely saber, but until then, there are plenty of instructions and videos on Google!

Hosting Tips:

When hosting, we typically focus on three to four courses. We start with appetizers and snacks, make our way to salads and entrees, and then dessert. For a really fun pairing when hosting, try pairing a chocolate cake or a brownie sundae with a Ruby Port. Your guests will be so impressed! My motto is never to miss a good opportunity for a dessert pairing! At Thanksgiving, a great pairing is Pecan Pie with a Tawny Port. 

Follow our Instagram page for more pairing ideas. We share a lot of recipes from our favorite cookbooks and our favorite wine pairing cookbooks. Typically, we do the most cooking on the weekends and share a lot of those pairings on Instagram Stories! During the Holiday season, we plan ahead and post our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner menus with wine pairings on the blog for inspiration! Cheers!