Hosting your own cocktail party is an easy and fun way to entertain your friends or make new ones. Serving signature drinks during a birthday party or any other social gathering is a unique way to stay memorable and become the talk of the town. Especially if you do it in a professional manner and serve cocktails the right way.
In order for you to succeed, I have made this list of five essential things you need to remember when hosting your own cocktail party.
Decide On The Cocktail Menu
Hosting your own cocktail party doesn’t need to be expensive. My suggestion is to focus on a maximum of three or four cocktail recipes. Serving more drinks would imply buying more ingredients, which would in turn raise your party expenses.
So, just keep it simple. Pick three recipes which you find easy to prepare and stick with them. Later on, as you get more experienced with mixing drinks, you can switch to more difficult recipes or introduce more options.
Create A Bar Section
If you’re hosting your party at home and you don’t own a home bar, the kitchen would be the best place to mix your drinks. Keep in mind that mixing drinks requires easy access to your refrigerator (where you will store some of your ingredients) and sink (where you will dispose liquids and ice after making the drinks). Make sure you have adequate working space, so move all items which take up space but you won’t be needing.
Having to mix your drinks in the kitchen can be a real issue, especially if you have a small kitchen or it’s isolated from the room where your guests are. Setting up a cocktail table or a small bar in another room is your second best option. Just make sure you create some means of disposing liquids and keep it out of sight. Also, remember to put a small rug or cloth under and behind the bar to protect the floor or carpet.
Keep the bar area as far as possible from the food and snacks area. Doing so prevents large groups of people from staying in one area. If you’re serving other alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine, set up a different area for those drinks.
Prepare Your Equipment
Having the proper equipment is essential to hosting your own cocktail party. Depending on the three cocktail recipes you have chosen to prepare during your party, you should have a clear idea of the tools you’re going to need. For instance, if the recipes you chose are made by blending the ingredients, you would obviously need a blender. If however, one of the recipes is made by shaking the ingredients, you would need a cocktail shaker as well.
Regardless of any other tools you will be needing, make sure you have an ice bucket with scoop and tongs. If you don t own one yet, buy one – it’s not that expensive. Use the scoop – never the glass – to gather ice in the mixing glass or shaker. Use the tongs to add single cubes to a prepared drink. Having this tool proves you care about your guests and their hygiene. Never use your hands to add ice to the drink, no matter how clean they are.
Also, make sure all your equipment is clean from previous use. If you’re using a blender in which you prepared milkshakes days ago, and you haven’t cleaned it properly, imagine what this would do to the taste of your cocktails.
Buy Proper Glasses
Invest in buying proper glasses for your drinks. Respect the types of glasses that are listed in your recipes, they are listed for a reason. For instance, holding a stemmed glass by its stem doesn’t only serve the purpose of preventing finger marks on the glass, it also makes sure that one’s body temperature doesn’t affect the temperature of the cocktail.
Make sure you have enough glasses. If you plan on inviting ten guests, make sure you have thirty glasses. It will cost you a little extra, but it will prove you know how to throw a quality party. Keep in mind that during a party guests often misplace their drink, break a glass or two and so on.
I recommend buying shot, cocktail and old-fashioned glasses. That way, you could serve almost any drink – even if one of your guests requests a drink that s not on your cocktail menu.
Buy Quality Spirits
Once you’ve decided which cocktails you’ll be serving, you need to buy the appropriate spirits. A spirit is what an unsweetened, distilled, alcoholic beverage with an alcohol content of at least 20% ABV (alcohol by volume) is called. What spirits you will be buying is depending on the cocktail recipes you’re using.
Be sure to buy quality spirits. Sure, you can save some money by buying cheaper spirits (i.e. a $10 vodka bottle), but these brands are cheaper for a reason. Usually, that reason is quality.
Choosing cheap brands may affect the overall taste of the cocktails you serve in a negative way. I’m not saying you should go for the most expensive brand, just make sure the brand you do choose is of great quality. I recommend the use of mostly premium brands. You don t want your guests to think that you’d serve them anything but the best.