About three months ago my children’s school had one of those auction events where goods, services, and whatnot are donated to the school and are bid upon in a silent auction to raise money. Well, my wife, in the interest of promoting her catering business, donated a cocktail party for 10 people at a fixed cost for 6-7 flights of various appetizers and cocktails. I, in my exuberance and from my desire to share such wonderful creations now at my disposal said, ‘Well, heck! I’ll bartend and we can theme the cocktails around ‘classic drinks’ and I’ll match them to your menu!’. Brilliant, right?!

Well, it turns out a lot more goes into this than I originally thought and I have a much greater and new-found respect for the job food and cocktail menu consultants perform. In preparation for this event, Joana and I hosted sampler tastings for her parents (who will be actually hosting the event at their house) and ourselves. About 30 appetizers and 20+ cocktails into the thing I have this to report: this shit is f’ing hard. First, you have to take into account the following (at minimum):

• Variation in base spirits/alcohols (lest I catch myself serving only gin-based drinks)
• Tastes of the target audience (let’s be honest, the Blinker and the Ward Eight are not for everyone)
• Matching the food in flavor, theme, and appearance
• Expense (not going to use cheap ingredients, but not going to make seven Chartreuse-heavy drinks either)
• Alcohol content (seriously, it’s a 2.5 hour party and there are going to be 6-7 drinks…no lawsuits please)

So, starting with the last point it was decided early on that all servings would be half-sized. Good… well, now the hard part. I felt from our gang of four that we had a pretty good set of testers that represented various drinking styles. We took notes on tasting cards in the areas of smell, appearance, taste, and food pairing. Here is the list of all the cocktails we sampled and their relative averaged scores on a 10-point scale from highest-to-lowest:

Espressotini*: 9.25/10
Original Mai Tai: 9.13/10
Toasted Almond*: 9.0/10
Fog Cutter: 8.75/10
Martinez: 8.5/10
Pimm’s Cup: 8.25/10
Jack Rose: 8.25/10
Aviation: 8.25/10
Champagne Cocktail: 7.75/10
Romance*: 7.75/10
Corpse Reviver #2: 7.50/10
Gazebo: 7.38/10
Pink Lady: 7.38/10
Caipirinha: 7.25/10
Sidecar: 7.00/10
Pegu Club: 5.25/10
Blinker: 5.00/10
Pendennis: 4.75/10
Calvados Cocktail: 4.75/10
Black Orchid*: 3.67/10
Golden Dawn**: 2.75/10
Ward Eight: 2.00/10

* not what I would consider classic cocktails; added by request
** in full disclosure, I really messed this one up in the making – don’t ask

Many of these will be getting their own posts in the future, but the first thing I notice is that the scale really tends from a preference of sweeter-to-drier which probably fairly represents the general public’s taste. A few that stand out to me that I really hoped would fare better among the competition are the Corpse Reviver #2, the Caipirinha, and the Aviation given that these are several that I keep in my own regular rotation. One thing I’m glad of at the end of the exercise is that classic and vintage recipes still held their own against the ‘alternative’ cocktails I was requested to put into the rotation, the Espressotini (a variation on the Mudslide), the Romance (this is deserving its own post, actually), and the Black Orchid (really an abomination). Those in bold italics are the ones that made the cut and will be put into rotation.

Now, if only I can find a frickin’ decent channel knife to do justice to the garnishes I’m trying to provide for each of these AND if I can intelligently match them to the appetizers I’ll be set. Bloody cheap channel knives; wish me luck – I’ll let you know how it goes. And, if you have any suggestions as to how to best manage the timing of the cocktail flight to the food, pairing the food to the cocktails, or just not going crazy, I’m all ears.