With New Year’s Eve only weeks away, it’s time to pay attention to the bottles behind your tiki bar. Part of the fun of owning your own tiki bar is carefully selecting the liquor you’d like to use to stock it.  A broad basic range of liquor is key to any good home bar.

Because your guests can’t survive on rum alone, here is a good video on the key bottles that you’ll want to stock your bar with, along with descriptions of the winners.

Once you’ve got the basics covered, you’ll need some tiki-specific selections in order to be prepared for all those Zombies and Test Pilots you’ll be mixing up.  Here are a few more bottles you may want to start with.

• Light Rum – Cruzan Estate Light or Bacardi Carta Blanca
• Golden Rum – Gosling’s Gold
• Dark Rum – Gosling’s Black Seal or Cruzan Black Strap
• Overproof Rum – Bacardi 151 or Wray & Nephew White Overproof
• Orange Curacao – Holland DeKuyper

You never know what cocktails that people might want, so keep that bar stocked with a little bit of variety to keep your guests happy.  Some vodka, tequila, scotch, and a couple of other alternatives should fit nicely with all of those rum bottles.

Happy shopping!