If you’d rather host a cocktail party than a wine tasting, here are a few suggestions that work:
- Encourage guests to bring their own cocktail recipes.
- Keep it simple: feature just one type of spirits. Vodka is a good choice for concocting cocktails because it adapts to so many other ingredients.
- Set up a small “bartending area” in the kitchen, and have plenty of ice ready.
- Provide several different kinds of glasses, including stemmed martini glasses.
- Stage a little contest where everyone tries to guess the ingredients in their drinks, and award a bottle of spirits to the winner.
- Provide tasting sheets, with space for drink recipes.
- Serve food while your guests taste, and remind them to “taste responsibly.” A good approach might be to have each guest create one cocktail, which one other guest will drink. That means each guest will be guessing a different drink’s ingredients.
