Screenshot: Modern Rogue

The hosts of the Modern Rogue YouTube channel bill themselves as “professional idiots,” and they use their series to try to educate themselves and, if they’re lucky, the rest of the world (or at least a few thousand YouTube followers). Apparently, being the quintessential Modern Rogue (a.k.a., “the most interesting guy in the room”) falls into three categories: “scoundrel” (where episodes focus on topics like how to set up a private radio station), “warrior” (sample topic: knife throwing), and “gentleman,” the category where we find the Rogues’ most recent outing, “The Essentials To A Five-Bottle Bar.”


Hosts Brian Brushwood and Jason Murphy invite a bartender named Trevor on board to describe his ideal bar setup, with five liquors (rum, tequila, whiskey, gin, and vodka), featuring brands that are high-quality but not too pricey. The bar fixings extend into bitters, vermouth, simple syrup, and soda and tonic water. That basic setup can be used to concoct almost any kind of standard drink, so they set out to make a Manhattan, throwing back to an old episode. If you’re looking for the perfect streamlined bar, it may be worth the 10 minutes of your time to check this out, which is probably a lot more practical than some of the guys’ other videos, like making nunchucks from magazines.