Come home to a quiet drink

IN STORE

Here's something for the houseproud and hospitable Indian "" a home bar. As lifestyles become more gracious and as a quiet drink at home with a few friends comes to score over the noise and clamour of a pub, the home bar has come to be a must-have.

Most upwardly mobile homes already have something of the kind, even if it is only a cabinet where wine and liquor bottles can be stored and showed off. But the markets now have more specialised products on offer, available at a few high-end furniture stores in the metros.

Two-in-one

The rather ornate, antique-looking piece of furniture above is a sliding bar christened Estelle. It is a concealed unit, which means when it is not doing duty as a bar, it can be shut up into display unit. It's available at Woodmart Exclusif in the capital and comes with a price tag of Rs 59,000.

Open and shut case

But if you're looking for something that'll really stand out, here's something from Portside Cafe, an exclusive leather furniture and home artefacts store in Pune (you can order online at www.kishhandicrafts.com).

Drawing its inspiration from the travelling trunk of yore, it opens out into a cabinet that can hold all your expensive bottles. It's covered in light tanned leather with Portside Cafe stencilled all over, and has wheels fixed below. Prices "" strictly on request.

Round and round it goes

You also have the really high-end brands come into India now. August, which opened shutters a month ago in Delhi's posh Basant Lok market, stocks bars from premium Italian brands like Ceppi, Reflex, Smania.

Look at this rather fancy bar trolley in glass and wood with swivel-out storage. But there's fancier, more differentiated stuff, says Preeti Sabharwal of August, for the evolved tippler.

"You can have a dry bar or a wet bar, complete with sink, wine chiller, ice-cube maker "" everything you could possibly want to make exotic cocktails." All of which comes for a price, of course "" anywhere from Rs 1-4 lakh lakh. After all, good things never came cheap.