Post #587042 by Limbo Lizard on Fri, Apr 29, 2011 7:00 AM

On 2011-04-28 14:18, arriano wrote:
"...Maybe the moral is, sometimes less effort equals more satisfied customers."

As host, you can easily become overly pre-occupied, worrying how to efficiently produce a variety of particularly fine drinks, in quantity, at an affordable cost.
The guests, meanwhile, are also focused on the cost - namely, FREE BOOZE! Yippee!

Arriano is right. Keep it simple, and spare yourself a lot of underappreciated effort and expense. You quickly run into the law of diminishing returns, when you work to give a lively crowd the type of drinks better enjoyed, along with relaxed conversation, by just a few friends or guests. You wouldn't put out the bottles of single malt at a party - it would never be appreciated in proportion to its cost. The 'crowd' is distracted with manic talking and laughing, eating and music and "fun", and isn't going to notice and appreciate a complex, nuanced drink. It's a party! They're happy enough that there ARE drinks, and only hope that they don't run out.

The exception is if your guest list is mostly drawn from, for example, serious tiki aficionados or 'The Scotch Appreciation Society' - guests who are uncommonly attentive to the qualities and features of their beverage. In which case, the drinks will probably be the the main attraction, the 'centerpiece' of the party.

"The rum's the thing..."

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2011-04-29 07:04 ]