“Combine” Your Cocktails for a Successful Holiday Celebration
We are now diving into the deep waters of the holiday season. While I love offering food ideas to make party planning easier, I think we need to address an equally important player: the drinks. As someone who loves to host holiday parties, one of the best ways to help yourself is by making cocktails. This saves time, clutter and stress. I’d love to give you more time to mix and less time to mix, so use this dosing guide to make holiday cocktails and mocktails ahead of time.
Batch processing is a host’s best friend
The idea is simple: packaged cocktails are simply large batches of pre-mixed drinks without ice. Many cocktail recipes are proportions or measurements that are easy to multiply. This means that, depending on the mixture, you can mix a large amount of ingredients and store the mixture in the refrigerator or freezer for several hours or days before you need it. When it’s party time, your themed drink just needs some final preparation. Often this step is as difficult as pouring ice onto ice.
Preparing the bags ahead of time means you’ll have more time on the day of the party to focus on plating charcuterie boards, answering the doorbell, or actually eating your own snacks and talking to the people you like. Be sure to let guests know where the lot is so they can help themselves. This allows them to be more independent and experience a festive “feel at home” atmosphere.
Now that you understand the benefits of batch processing, here are some tips to get you on the path to success.
Choose the right cocktail
Not every smoothie keeps well in the refrigerator or freezer, so you’ll want to be careful when doing your research. Cocktails with a high alcohol content work well per serving, such as a Martini , Negroni , Long Island Iced Tea, Sazerac, or Paper Airplane. These drinks are low in juice and non-alcoholic components, which means they store well without losing flavor. Especially with martinis, keep in mind that if you don’t plan on stirring or shaking the cocktail over ice just before serving, you’ll have to dilute it to account for this missing step. Here is the proportion for properly diluting martinis in bottles .
Be wary of drinks that are mostly sparkling wine, soda or tonic (mostly all sparkling). They’ll lose all their holiday fizz while they sit in the refrigerator. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a sparkly topper. To get the most out of bottling, choose a drink whose base you can prepare ahead of time, such as Long Island Iced Tea , then add a sparkling topper (Coke here) to each glass as needed. Pour the base into a cup filled with ice (if using) and top with the appropriate sparkling drink. You’ll need to let guests know about this step and leave soda, tonic, or champagne for them, and even if you have to add people’s drinks yourself, it’s still a lot faster than mixing each one individually from scratch.
Save the egg white, creamy foam and mixed drinks and make them to order. These drinks look and taste best immediately after preparation.
How much should I fill?
One day I proudly made a large batch of cocktails. The two hours of celebration were over. Sure, I stocked my home bar for people to rummage through, but I was hoping that a clever, toasty, butter-washed whiskey cocktail would be the mainstay throughout the evening. I greatly underestimated the size of the batch.
In times like these, it’s better to do some math. Get as accurate a headcount as possible and allow for four servings per guest for a four-hour party. Some guests won’t have a cocktail, some will have less than four, and some will have more, but this calculation should get you closer to an appropriate portion. Obviously, if you know two friends will only drink wine, you can subtract those portions. If you have 10 people to attend, you will need a 40 batch batch.
Use the number of servings to calculate the amount of each ingredient needed. This will help you buy the ingredients. If your recipe calls for two ounces of gin per serving, you will need 80 ounces of gin. Most liquor bottles are listed in milliliters, so you’ll need to quickly convert ounces online. Since a handle of alcohol is typically 1.75 liters, you’ll need a handle plus a regular 750ml bottle of gin. (Nobody said bagging was cheap. Has anyone made a cocktail?)
How to store
Store beautifully crafted cocktails in jugs or large bottles with secure lids. I love these glass flip top bottles : they’re small enough to easily store in the fridge or freezer, but large enough to hold multiple servings. The small hole makes it easy to pour without making a mess (especially if your friends get drunk), and this particular set includes a handy collapsible funnel if you don’t already have one. Use the ounce calculation from earlier to decide how many bottles you need.
Where to store it
The two best places to store prepared cocktails are in the refrigerator or freezer, mainly because a cold drink is better, but also because juices and other ingredients that can oxidize at room temperature (like vermouth) have a longer shelf life . in a refrigerator. The longer shelf life means you can prepare a batch a day or even a week ahead of schedule. If the smoothie or mocktail you’re making includes fresh juices as a main ingredient, consider mixing the batch the day before or the night before. The juices will not “go bad,” but they may lose some of their flavor.
Store any batches with high alcohol content (around 30% ABV or higher) in the freezer. They won’t freeze in a regular home freezer and can become slushy at best. ( Here’s a cocktail strength calculator that can come in handy for a few reasons.) Drinks with dairy ingredients, such as milk or cream, should be refrigerated, just in case. If they become runny, the texture of the milk ingredient may change after thawing.
Once the party starts, simply follow the final steps: cocktails with ice are poured on top of the ice, and drinks served “topped” are either already properly diluted, or you will have to pour the concentrate into a shaker to shake or stir before straining. Perhaps all you need to do is top off the mixture with champagne. Bring your own and enjoy the warm glow of the holiday season.