This is why people don't like your parties

You can be a mixologist, that's fine. What, stop doing wrong things. Today's topic is about building the perfect cocktail menu. I've got five guidelines for you. Then I'm gonna show you a sample menu, so you have some inspiration for your next gathering. And I'm also gonna include one extra bonus tip at the end, so you're gonna wanna stick around for that. This is gonna be catered more towards the home bar, the home bartender, the cocktail enthusiast, but I think you could expand upon these tips for a professional bar as well. Also, today marks the official launch of Gather and Set, something that I've been working on for a long time, and I will talk about it a little bit later. But for now, hit that subscribe button for more sips, tips, and recipes. And if you haven't yet, hit that notification button, because you don't know when I'm gonna make another video. Let's get to it, to the bar. Number one, stop making things so complicated. Keep it simple. Stupid, kidding about the stupid bit, but we really do wanna keep it simple, simplify things. What we're doing when we do that is we're gonna reduce decision fatigue for both you and the guest. I would say for just a nice party at home, keep it to around three to five cocktails. That's it, cap it at five. You can do a lot with five cocktails. In fact, you can do a lot with three if you're clever about it. This doesn't mean you have to dumb down your menu. You just have to make it practical. When I'm putting together a little menu, I like to have something that everybody's familiar with, but also maybe one that's a little less expected. Mistake number two, you're not repeating ingredients. What I mean by that is if you have one cocktail on the menu, you can have another cocktail that shares one or two of the ingredients from the first cocktail. That's gonna shorten your shopping list. Another thing that we like to do as bartenders when we're hosting is you kinda wanna show off all the bottles you've collected. So it's like, wow, that's an impressive back bar. And you wanna show that I can use all of these bottles. I get that, but if you are trying to simplify the whole process for yourself, then reuse some of the ingredients. Now, that doesn't mean that if you come up with a cocktail that calls for an ingredient that you're not gonna use in the other cocktails, then you can't have that on the list. That's not what I mean. What I'm trying to say for those other bottles, for all bottles, they should earn a spot on your menu. So if you bring in something like Orange Curacao or Campari, maybe you only have one drink on the menu that has that in it, but it is a versatile bottle. So you can then make call drinks off the menu using that bottle if you want to. And you can still get surprisingly diverse cocktails. This is also good to keep in mind for other ingredients, like citrus. If you have a couple different sour style cocktails you wanna showcase, to simplify that, pick one sour ingredient, whether it's lemon or lime, and then use that across the board so that you're not having to juice all different kinds of things. If you have grapefruit, if you have orange, if you have lemon, lime, it starts getting a little muddy, a little complicated, and it's gonna be a lot of work. Again, this doesn't really apply to a professional bar where you have all the resources and you have somebody else helping you with prep and you've got a ton of space. But for a home bar, a quick little, fun little cocktail party, keep it simple. Mistake number three, don't get so hyper-focused on one theme or one style of cocktail. If you like a strong sipping cocktail served on a big rock, and that's the kind of drink that you think is the best kind of drink. So you make a cocktail list of five all-strong sippers served on a big rock, you're really too narrow. You're kind of leaving a lot of your guests out. What if they don't like that kind of drink? What if they like a nice, light, sour-style cocktail? Maybe they like something served long, something fizzy. So you want to offer a few different styles of drinks. Mistake number four, you didn't plan ahead. You're having this party, everybody's having a great time, and you find yourself stuck prepping for more cocktails to come, or you're cleaning so that you have the tools ready for the next round, and you're running around, you're going to the gas station to get ice, or whatever the case may be. You didn't think ahead. And that goes hand-in-hand with writing out the menu, because you can look at all the things that you're gonna have to do. What sort of garnishes are we gonna have? Do we even need garnishes? How much ice are we gonna need? Which actually could be its own subcategory. I'm here to tell you, you're gonna need a lot of ice. Bartenders use more ice than you would imagine. So just have plenty on hand, especially if you're having a tiki party. Oh my goodness, you're gonna need an ice factory. Juicing, that's something you can do ahead of time. You could even go ahead and make some super juice if you want, and also the cleaning aspect. You know, if you're using a shaking tin, you're gonna want to rinse that out, obviously. But if you have a cocktail with, say, egg white in it, you're gonna wanna wash that out thoroughly. So that's gonna take up your time, unless you have a bunch of tools. Maybe you've got 12 shaking tins and you're good to go. Think about all the steps that are gonna happen leading up to the cocktail, the making of, and then once that cocktail is out with the guest, how are you gonna reset? So make things go really quickly. If you have a friend that says, hey, I can be your bar back, that's a good friend. And if you've got a big freezer, you can put all of your glassware in the freezer so it's nice and cold. Otherwise, you can chill it as you go, or you could serve it in warm cocktail glasses and they'll never come back to another one of your cocktail parties ever again. All right, so plan ahead. Mistake number five, plain favorites. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. I have to tell you about this game-changing product for a night out with drinks. It's called Pre-Alcohol by Z-Biotics. Z-Biotics Pre-Alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to break down acetaldehyde, a by-product of drinking alcohol. Pre-Alcohol produces an enzyme that is designed to break down this by-product. Just remember to make Pre-Alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and enjoy your next day activities. Z-Biotics has sold more than 14 million bottles and has earned the trust of thousands, including myself. I often have to test multiple cocktails when I'm planning for a video. I still wanna get up the next morning and get on with my day. I've got things to do, including hang out with my dog. That's where Pre-Alcohol makes sense for me. If you wanna try it yourself, do it. It comes with a 100% money-back guarantee. If you are unsatisfied, they'll refund you 100%. Just head to zbiotics.com slash anders and use code anders at checkout for 15% off your first order. Again, that's zbiotics.com slash anders and use code anders at checkout for that 15% off. Freya, what are your thoughts on acetaldehyde? Wise words. As always, drink responsibly. Thanks, Z-Biotics. On to the film. Mistake number five. Showing favoritism to one type of drinker. It's easy. As somebody who is enthusiastic about cocktails to really be focused on one type of cocktail. And that can change as you go through your life. But during that party, you might think, oh, this is the cocktail I'm really excited about. I really want everybody to try this. And maybe even if not everybody likes it, that's what you're wanting to make and that's all you're talking about. And all of the other drinks on your menu kind of feel like an afterthought. We don't want that because then your guest is thinking, well, I got to try this one that Anders is so excited about. Or I'm scared to ask Anders for a margarita. Be kind. Don't be judgmental. Basically what I'm getting at is approach the party like a host more so than a mixologist. You can be a mixologist, that's fine. But for a party, you want to focus on being a host. That's what I think a bartender should be. It kind of rides this line between host and mixologist. That's why I prefer being called a bartender because I do know how to make drinks, but I'm also good at dealing with people. And that's what you should be too. If you're hosting a party, you got to take that into account or you're not going to be having success at your parties. And if you are interested in cocktails and somebody comes up and asks you for a margarita or a cosmopolitan or appletini, whatever the case may be, make a really good margarita, cosmopolitan, or appletini. Show off your skills that way. A good drink speaks for itself. You don't have to say anything. You just watch them drink it and they're like, oh man, that's the best cosmopolitan I've ever had. I had no idea it could be so good. I always thought it was a terrible pink drink until you made it for me. He said, yeah, you're welcome. You like a cosmo? Let me show you this other drink. That's how it works. So now let's throw together a little menu. Let's go down the list. I've got a little four cocktail menu for you. So the first drink that came to mind making this was the Queens Park Hotel Super Cocktail. Not only is it a great name and it's gonna look nice on the menu, but it is a great drink. And it has a good amount of ingredients that we can reuse in other cocktails. The base is a gold rum, sweet vermouth, fresh lime juice. Grenadine is the sweetener and Angostura bitters. I would shake this cocktail. I would serve it up and for a garnish, I would keep it simple. Maybe a lime wheel, something you can prep ahead of time. For the next cocktail, I'm gonna say let's have a Pegu Club. I'm going to reuse that lime juice and the Angostura bitters. We're gonna use gin as a base. Make sure I have the original strength, not the Navy strength. Nothing wrong with that, but it's just a stronger cocktail. And I don't like serving overly boozy drinks at the cocktail parties because then it turns into a mess and you have to clean it up. The sweetener is gonna be orange curacao, lime juice once again, and that Angostura bitters. This is also shaken served up. And I know that's already two sour style cocktails, but these drink very differently. Two different drinkers are gonna enjoy these cocktails. If you're like me, you enjoy both. Now I wanna throw in something a bit more familiar. We already have two sour style drinks. I want a stirred cocktail, something spirit forward, and I'm gonna choose bourbon as my base and we are making a Boulevardier. So we've got bourbon, Campari, and sweet vermouth. Remember this was in the Queens Park Hotel Super Cocktail. Campari, this is the only drink I'm gonna feature on the menu with this ingredient because this is a polarizing ingredient. Not everybody loves Campari. Normally I serve this up, but because the other drinks are served up, I'm gonna serve this one on a big queue. Those handmade ice chunks, people are gonna like them. Make sure you make enough, pop them in a Ziploc bag, throw them in the freezer. You'll be good for your party. For a garnish, if you wanna be fancy, flame some orange oil across the top. Otherwise you can just express orange oil across the top and that's great. Expressed orange oil is good across the Pegu Club as well. So four, I said four drinks, so let's do one more. I'm gonna throw in a, we could do a low ABV drink, but I'm gonna do a no ABV drink, a mocktail, because A, not everybody drinks and two, not everybody's wanting to drink all night long. Sometimes you wanna take breaks, have something with no booze in it. That's good, it's good. That's a smart drinker. If you're pacing yourself, you can come to my cocktail parties. All right, so for the non-alcoholic drink, I'm gonna make a sparkling pomegranate limeade with what we have already. We've got the lime juice, we've got the grenadine. The only thing we need to add is bubbly water. Right here, it's gonna be bright, citrusy, bubbly. We have something, we're gonna serve it long and now we introduce bubbles so that if somebody does a cold drink with bubbles, you're ready for it. For a garnish, because we've already done the lime wheels, I'll repurpose that and use the lime wheel for this cocktail because you're thinking smart. Look at that, be smart, be smart. You can also make this low ABV by adding in bitters. It's gonna be really good or any of the base spirits we have, you can add in there and make it an actual cocktail. All right, so there we have our four cocktails. We have three base spirits. We've got some familiar classics. We've got some lesser known classics, something with a tropical slant. We've got sour style, we've got spirit driven, we've got non-alcoholic, all in four drinks. This could be your bar along with ice and glassware. Yeah, I suppose this does look like a lot but if you were to stock a bar with just these ingredients, you'd actually make a lot of cocktails. Obviously we can make the four drinks on the menu but we can also make so many more. Look at this, we've got a Negroni right here. We've got a Manhattan right here. We've got a Gin Rickey. If we want it to go that route, something nice and bubbly and light. We could make an Americano if you want something low ABV. So the point is, you can make a lot of other drinks and here is my bonus tip. Right now we're using one syrup back here, the Grenadine but it's also a good idea to have a little simple syrup behind the bar. It's like having salt and pepper at your dinner table. With that simple syrup, well, number one, you can make a lot more cocktails. We could make a Daiquiri. We could make an Old Fashioned and a lot of times I found people like their drinks a little sweet. So if you make a drink and they like it but they're like, oh, can you make it a little bit sweeter? You're not having to add more Grenadine and bumping up the pomegranate flavor. You can actually add simple syrup and make it a little sweeter. What's more important than showing off all the bottles you have and the crazy techniques that you can do is to put together a thoughtful experience for your friends because they'll remember that. Keep it simple, stupids. Speaking of hosting, I've recently launched Gather and Set which is a site that is a home for all the things I recommend here on the channel and the things I use here on the channel from bar tools to glassware to my Grenadine and Falerno recipe books. There's even snacks on there. It is ever evolving. So my goal is to keep growing this so that you can host all different kinds of parties and you have everything you need. If you are into that sort of thing then click on the link down below or just head to gatherandset.com. Let me know what you think, have fun and thank you for supporting the channel and thank you as always for watching. If you weren't out there, I would just be crazy. I'll see you next time. Cheers.