How to clean bar tools

Stainless steel resists corrosion because of a thin chromium oxide layer on the surface. Citric acid attacks that layer, and dried citrus pulp holds the acid against the metal for hours. That is how a cheap tin develops pitting, how a Hawthorne spring picks up rust spots at the coil ends, and how a jigger's interior goes dull and spotted while the outside still looks fine.

Which makes the single most valuable habit a thirty-second one: rinse in warm water straight after the last drink, not when you tidy up in the morning. That does more for the life of a bar set than any product, and it is why bars rinse into a sink between every build.

The second habit is drying. Water left standing in the base of a tin or inside a jigger cone leaves mineral deposits as it evaporates, and those deposits are the cloudy film people mistake for scratched metal. Invert everything on a rack.

The plated-finish row is the expensive one. Copper, gunmetal and black-coated tins and strainers look superb and are a wear item by nature - a dishwasher accelerates that from years into months. If your set is plated, hand washing is not fussiness, it is the condition of ownership. Koriko vs Barfly goes into why finish choice is a long-term decision.

1. Rinse immediately, warm water. Everything, including the outside of the tins where someone's hand has been. Hot water is unnecessary and it bakes sugar on.
2. Unclip the Hawthorne spring. Pull it off the frame, rinse both, and run a thumb along the coil. If you feel grit, soak it.
3. Flush the fine mesh from the back. Water through the clean side pushes pulp out. Water through the dirty side drives it in.
4. Invert everything to dry. Tins, jiggers and mixing glass upside down on a rack. Standing water is where the cloudy film comes from.
5. Dry the wood by hand. A wooden muddler or a wood-handled strainer gets towel-dried immediately and left out, never put away damp.

Once a week, take the Hawthorne spring right off and leave it in warm soapy water for ten minutes while you do the rest. That coil holds more than you would believe, and it is the part of a bar set that starts to smell first.

Three problems that look like damage and are not:

• Cloudy, filmy steel. Limescale from hard water drying on the surface. Soak in equal parts white vinegar and warm water for ten minutes, rinse thoroughly, dry. Do not use a scouring pad - that is how you turn a cosmetic film into real scratches.
• Rust-colored spots on a strainer spring. Usually transferred iron from a sink or a drying rack rather than the steel itself failing. The same vinegar soak lifts it. If it returns in the same places, the spring has started to pit and the strainer is nearing the end of its life.
• A faint sour smell. Pulp in a spring coil, or a damp wooden muddler. Both are solved by taking the thing apart and drying it properly rather than by washing it harder.

One problem that is mechanical rather than hygienic: tins that have started sticking shut or leaking. That is almost never dirt - it is a deformed rim or a mismatched pair, and washing will not fix it. Why shaker tins stick and leak works through the causes in order.

Two things undo a good cleaning routine. The first is nesting tins while they are still damp: a 28oz with an 18oz inside it traps moisture in the join and that is where the dull ring at the base comes from. Store them apart, or store them nested only once bone dry.

The second is a drawer. Tools loose in a drawer knock against each other, which marks plating and bends a Hawthorne spring out of its seat. A bar mat or a tool roll on the surface is better in every way, and it also means the tools are to hand, which is the thing that decides whether a bar gets used at all. Best bar cart accessories covers the mat, and how to stock a bar cart covers the layout.

Glassware is its own case: store rocks glasses and coupes upright, not rim-down. Rim-down traps stale air and it puts the whole weight of the glass on its most fragile edge. Best coupe glasses covers washing stemware without breaking it.