Instagram is a great place to get mixology inspiration from professionals and home experts alike, but there are a few cocktail bars we check in on often because of their beautiful imagery, creative recipes, and quality classics.

Bumped, bruised, scratched, and scraped. That should be the description of a prizefighter after twelve rounds, not a bartender after an eight hour shift. But bartending can be a demanding job that is both physically and mentally draining. Luckily, there are ways to reduce stress and injuries for bartenders, and one solution is through bar equipment design.

From sea to shining sea, the United States is filled with high quality cocktail bars as part of the great cocktail revolution. But at the recent Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, the Columbia Room in Washington, D.C. took the Spirited Awards honor as Best American Cocktail Bar.

Whether it's in a hotel lobby, a new trendy restaurant, or a speakeasy, a cocktail bar is often the most profitable location in any food and beverage operation. Because it represents so much potential, it's even more important to consider best practices to help maximize the profitability of this space. Let's take a look at five essential tips for a profitable cocktail bar.

Try to implement zero-step bartending.

What is zero-step bartending? It's giving bartenders the ability to create everything in a single space without stepping around behind the bar. If everything is at arm's length, bartenders can create cocktails quicker, and the more cocktails a bartender can create in a given amount of time, the more profitable that space will be.

Keep your bar organized.

Mise en place, which is a common French phrase that means "to

The modern rebirth of the speakeasy can be traced back to the 1990s, but it took the craft cocktail renaissance the last 15 years to really cement it into our everyday bar vernacular.

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” – Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin may not have been talking about cocktails when he came up with that proverbial saying, but nowhere does it ring more truly today than behind the bar. Every second is key for bartenders, and proper organization and bar setup saves them time for when they’ll need it most.

The craft cocktail movement has led to more complex cocktail recipes, and consequently, warranted the need for bar setups to become more elaborate. That’s why the concept of mise en place has moved from the kitchen to the bar. From an Old Fashioned to Ben Franklin’s Milk Punch, organization can make all the difference behind the bar.

When you think of the Kentucky Derby, what comes to mind? Fancy hats? Singing “My Old Kentucky Home?” The Call to the Post? Or how about an ice cold mint julep? Hopefully the latter. No cocktail is so closely attached to a sporting event like the mint julep and the Kentucky Derby.

The Tobin Ellis Signature Cocktail Station is one of Perlick's greatest innovations over our first 100 years as a company. With the rise of craft cocktails, bars needed an easy way to maintain quality while increasing quantity. And when you increase quantity, you obviously increase profits.

Over the past several weeks, we've looked back at the last century to see how far we've come in the world of bar and beverage. From the 1917 wine vintages in Europe to cocktail trends through the decades, it's been fun reminiscing about what bars were serving 100 years ago. But now we'd like to take a look at why Perlick is here and the reasons we're still in business after all these years. Let's take a look back at 100 years of bar and beverage equipment innovations.

A lot has changed over the last 100 years. From bars to wine, the beverage world has evolved since 1917. Subsequently, so has the popularity and trendiness of certain mixed drinks and cocktails. Peek behind any bar and you’ll see what amounts to a museum of ingredients needed to create nearly every combination of cocktails from the past. Each decade, from Pre-Prohibition to the 21st century, has an iconic cocktail that reflects the culture and society of the era. Let’s take a look at some of the cocktail trends from the last 100 years.