HOW TO ORGANIZE DRINKS IN THE PANTRY

How you organize your drinks in your pantry depends on how accessible you want them to be for packing school and work lunches or hosting gatherings. Whether you have a small or large family or host little to lots of guests, here is how to organize your drinks in your pantry. And, did you know, you can also organize your spaces according to your organizing style? You can find out what your organizing style is here.

Before organizing your drinks, you must purge the expired ones and the ones you do not like and know you won’t drink. Be ruthless and purge the excess so you can more easily store what you do use.

In my freebie library here, I include guides which help walk you through the organizing process and help you decide what to purge and keep. I also include my declutter and organizing challenge calendars and guides to help direct you through each area of your home. These guides ensure you get through every nook and cranny and finally get to the other side of clutter … an organized and functional space!

In this post, we focus on how to organize all your drinks in your pantry. Below, I share ideas on how to organize and store your drinks with different types of organizing solutions that will work for your organizing styles and spaces. (I share how to organize drinks in the refrigerator here.)

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How to Organize Drinks for School or Work Lunches

The goal of organizing drinks for school and/or work lunches is to make them easy to grab and go … especially for those rushed mornings or the late nights preparing for tomorrow. I always like to opt for and encourage others to drink water. If school and work provide water, that’s great! You’re all set. If you need to bring your own drinking vessel, I shared how to organize your travel cups and mugs here (I also like to encourage the use of eco-friendly reusable solutions).

If school and work don’t provide water, utilizing your home’s water filtration system and your portable drinking vessel is the most eco-friendly and money-saving solution. The next best solution would be to refill large water jugs. If you don’t have the space to store them along the floor of your pantry or garage, you can use stackable water jugs (they are much more affordable at Walmart. I use this water pump to dispense our water.) Or, you can use a stand like this to utilize vertical space (found here):

If you absolutely must use individual water bottles, I suggest storing them directly on your pantry shelves. Depending on the configuration of your pantry, you might make good use of this bin to contain your water bottles horizontally on a shelf that may be two short to contain your water bottles vertically (found here):

And, if you like to flavor your water, you can store this next to your water bottles to make your flavor packets easy to grab and go (found here):

I imagine that most of you prefer that your flavored drinks are cold. So, I share how to organize drinks in the refrigerator here.

How to Organize Drinks in Bulk

Unless you have drink refrigerators accessible to your household and guests, you will need to create a system in your pantry to organize and store your drinks to make them ready to serve when needed. And, since it is favorable to serve drinks cold, here is how to set up systems that make sense depending on the size of your family and number of guests you serve, how you like to serve these drinks, and the space you have available.

How to Organize Drinks for Your Family and Small Gatherings

You may like to purchase an assortment of drinks in bulk for your family. And, if you host small gatherings frequently, you probably like to keep an assortment of drinks readily available for guests. Simply storing drinks in their original packaging in your pantry, basement, or garage and restocking your refrigerator as needed can be the most efficient way to organize them, especially if you use my refrigerator organizing tips here. So, keep things simple and designate a section in your pantry where you store drinks in their original packaging and refill your refrigerator as needed.

Whenever you open a package, if you don’t empty the entire package into the fridge, you can remove the rest of the drinks from the package and either store them directly on your shelf or within a basket or bin like this (found here):

If you do not have the space in your refrigerator to store drinks (before you determine that, check out my refrigerator organizing tips here), then, you will ensure you always have ice available. In this case, you can use the same method previously noted and store drinks from opened packages directly on your pantry shelf or within a bin or basket. Dispenser racks, like this, can be helpful for quick and easy access especially if you have deep pantry shelves (found here):

How to Organize Drinks for Large Gatherings

For large gatherings, you are typically serving drinks in containers or coolers with the drinks nested in ice. So, you need to designate a place to store your containers and/or coolers. Some containers can easily be nested or maybe you store your coolers from ceiling racks in the garage. For your drinks, you can do the same as noted above and simply store them within their original packaging in a designated area in your pantry. Then, you can fill your containers with ice and drinks as needed.

Or, if you regularly host large gatherings, you can already remove your drinks from their original packaging and contain them in your containers and coolers like these (found here) on your pantry shelves. On hosting day, you can simply fill your containers with ice, and you’re ready to go!

I hope you found some ideas for how to organize your drinks in your pantry for your organizing style and/or the space that you have! In my next post, I share ideas on how to organize drinks in your refrigerator. Don’t forget to grab my free resources from my freebie library here. Let’s get to the other side of clutter … an organized and functional space!

Happy Organizing!