If you're reading this, you must love a good bar. The thing is, unless you live in a city, at best ride the bus or walk to work and stop in for a few drinks on your way home, you'll visit a good bar only occasionally. If a pandemic comes along, all the bars, but not the liquor stores, shut down. In short, you need a bar in your house or apartment that is open whenever you say. Nor is need too strong a word. The home bar should not be optional if your plans include reliably and frequently enjoying life, escaping cares, feeling magically better at the end of a terrible day with the help of spirits. During the Covid 19 Pandemic of 2020 and 2021, with time on my hands and liquor stores designated essential businesses, cocktails and the cocktail diary magically proved to be primary, daily sources of joy, order, ideas, conversation, anticipation, and salvation. You hold in your hands the story of those cocktails and how to make them. The Pandemic over, the first cocktail on an evening still peels away the cares of the day and transports us to a better world.