Cocktails Made Easy - 3 recipes to get the party started

This time last week I was adding the finishing touches as I prepared for my first cocktail party! If you saw my post about simple syrups earlier in the week, you will remember that I was going to share a bit about the party and the cocktails I chose to make.

Since there were about 15 people coming to the party, I decided it would be rather tricky to make a cocktail for each person individually. So instead I came up with 3 cocktail recipes that I could make and serve in bulk in my pretty drinks dispensers, which we originally bought for the wedding. You can buy them here if you fancy giving this a go yourself.

Here are the recipes I devised for my cocktails, all of them went down well, but I think the Mojito disappeared the quickest!

Drunken Watermelon (far left)

500ml Vodka

2 litres Lemonade

350 ml of Watermelon Simple Syrup - Recipe here

Lime Juice to taste

Watermelon chunks (I cut mine into pretty stars using a cookie cutter)

Frozen Blueberries

El Macho Majito (middle)

500ml White Rum

2 litres of Soda Water

350 ml of Mint Simple Syrup - Recipe here

7 juiced lemons

7 juiced limes

2 sliced lemons

3 sliced limes

Mint Sprigs

Elderflower Fuzzle (right)

350ml Gin

4 litres Tonic Water

350ml Elderflower Cordial

Raspberry and mint ice cubes

And here are some pictures of the madness that ensued after consuming these sugar filled cocktails;

My Dad recently came over and mounted the chalkboard that was used for the open-mic at our wedding, to the wall in our hallway. I was excited to use it to show where important things were located.

Check out my pretty Italian wine glasses from Liberty London. I was very brave and allowed everyone to use these, thankfully they all remain in one piece!

We decided to do some shots of Apple Schnappes. Unfortunately it seemed that my shot glasses were all different sizes, and mine was by far the largest! Oh well, bottoms up!

And so we have the last ones standing.  The alcohol has clearly taken its toll at this point as Chris has replaced his glass of delicious cocktail with some freshly squeezed lemon juice in a lemon juicer.

He seems quite happy about it though.

We had a lovely night and I would definitely recommend my method of bulk cocktail making. It meant that I could relax once it had all been done, and I think it meant less mess too.  Everyone said how yummy the cocktails were, so I think we did pretty well. The secret is just put loads and loads of sugar in it! None of us slept for days.

Laura xXx

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Simple Syrup Recipes

While Chris and I were away on our honeymoon, I made a list of things I wanted to do when we got home. One of those things was to host a little cocktail party! In preparation for the day I decided to make my own simple syrups to make things a bit easier for myself. Basically these are used to sweeten any cocktail, since sugar tends to not dissolve, which you will have already discovered if you are Mojito lover like me!

It turned out to be really easy, and I had most of the things I needed to make it already in the cupboard. The most basic ingredients are granulated sugar and water in equal parts, but you can add different flavourings depending on what you have in mind for your cocktail!

What you will need:

Ingredients

Sugar

Water

Flavouring (optional)

Equipment

Saucepan

Wooden spoon

Glass bowl or large jug

Cling film

Sieve for straining

A bottle to decant your syrup into

First of all I made some plain simple syrup using 2 cups of demerera sugar and 2 cups of water. The trick is to always use the same amounts of these two ingredients. I simply heated the water in a saucepan until simmering, and then added my sugar. I left it on a low heat for about 15 minutes until the sugar had fully dissolved, and stirred continually.  I let the syrup cool in a covered bowl, then decanted into this rather pretty little bottle, which I got from Dunelm Mill. It made slightly less than 500ml  I imagine if you want a clearer coloured syrup you could try giving white sugar a go instead.

Then I got a little more adventurous and tried a couple with flavourings, since I was having a watermelon cocktail and a mojito style cocktail.

The mint syrup was easy, I just added about 2 packed cups of fresh mint after the syrup was made, but before cooling.  I left this to steep all day, then once it was cool I put it in the fridge overnight.  In the morning I strained it and decanted it into my bottle

I found it trickier to find a recipe for watermelon syrup, so in the end I made up my own. I decided to blend some chopped watermelon to make a juice, I used about the same amount as I did water, and I added this right at the beginning. I also added a few chunks of watermelon. I left this one to simmer a bit longer since there was more liquid. Again I left it to steep and then strained it into a bottle.

Amazingly, although it was my first go all three simple syrups worked really well, and the drinks I made went down a storm.  I'll fill you in on the full recipes and how the rest of the party went later in the week!

What are your favourite cocktail recipes?

Laura xXx

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