What kinds of wine you serve is between you and your customers. The range and quality of spirits you sell is up to you. If you sell a variety of specialty beers or just stick with the favourites, that’s your business.

But there are some things every good hotel bar should be equipped with.

Here’s a quick checklist to make sure you’re not caught short.

A good quality can opener. Don’t laugh - they need to be replaced just like anything else does.

Wine savers. These can save you a great deal of money in the long run. They’re flexible wine bottle stoppers applied to an opened bottle of wine with a small vacuum hand pump. They prevent degradation of the wine due to oxidation in a way that simply pushing the cork back in the bottle, or screwing the bottle cap back on, can’t do. The hand pump is relatively cheap and easy to use, and they allow you to keep selling wine from opened bottles rather than having to throw away any unused product.

‘Waiter’s friend’ bottle openers. Make sure your bar and your bar staff have plenty of these. They’re bottle openers with attached corkscrew and a small curved knife for cutting wrapping around wine bottle necks. Super handy things these.

Ice buckets with tongs. These are for serving chilled wines to tables, or simply to be able to dispense ice cubes at the table. It’s a common mistake to not carry enough of these and not be prepared for a rush.

Glassware. You need more than one kind of wine glass and one kind of drinks glass. Check your inventory, chances are good you simply need to replenish your basic stock of bar glassware and, while you’re at it, make sure you can serve the different kinds of wines, spirits and beers with the proper presentation for your more discerning guests.