CELEBRATION COCKTAILS: Outstanding Batch Cocktails and Individual Drinks for Holidays, Parties, Birthdays, Weddings, and Other Festive Occasions

CELEBRATION COCKTAILS: Outstanding Batch Cocktails and Individual Drinks for Holidays, Parties, Birthdays, Weddings, and Other Festive Occasions
RHIANNON LEE
Harvard Common Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$19.99 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Make any size gathering truly festive and magical with a delectable themed cocktail that pairs perfectly with the occasion.

Let's face it: If the occasion is special, the drink should be special too. Why trot out your weeknight gin and tonic or scotch and soda when something extraordinary is called for? Whether you're serving a get-together with three people to celebrate a job promotion or a grand holiday party for three hundred people, cocktail expert Rhiannon Lee, author of three masterful books on mixology, serves up the recipe ideas you need in this colorful, photo-rich, and inventive book. She provides recipes both for pitcher and punchbowl batch cocktails perfect for a big crowd and for single-glass drinks a host can make to suit guests' individual tastes.

With short ingredient lists—so you can spend less time shopping and more time celebrating!—the recipes include:

Lots of themed drinks for Fall festivities, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Easter

For sharing with your sweetheart on Valentine's Day, a romantic vodka martini with a splash of cranberry and a touch of rose water

A delicate and exotic Lunar Martini, a blend of lychee juice, vodka, and a hint of lime, for celebrating the Chinese New Year

The Blushing Bride, a pink-hued bubbly pomegranate-flavored drink ideal for bridal showers and wedding parties

Cocktails for holidays all around the globe, including the Hindu holidays Diwali and Holi and Hanami, the Japanese cherry blossom holiday

Touchdown Tea, a strong and refreshing iced tea cocktail with bourbon and lemon for tailgating and any other sporting occasion

From the Spring Equinox to the Winter Solstice to all the weddings, birthdays, retirements, and holidays that lie in your future, you will find a lifetime's worth of perfect drink ideas in this fun and delicious book.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Party season is coming! Do you need to stock up your bar? Of course you do!

contents, aka shopping list

The thing about a book like this is it can hide your ineptitude with or ignorance of alcohol as a party-starter by being a beautiful thing to look at. One friend of mine would put a book like this open on the bar, and say, "come pick a drink!" Since he knew he could look up how to make it, gracefully, and already had everything needed for it in the bar (having read the book and made the list), it was training and fun combined. I liked those parties.

the why and the how

So as a (self-)gift, as a thing to have around, or just something to thumb through and wonder "who thought of that?":

seriously?

...there's a reason for this one to join your celebration and libation of the season.

winter

spring

summer

fall

Rejoin cocktail culture! Time to swig your way to happiness! (In moderation, of course, these're some very fattening tipples.)