'I'm a drinks expert – here's how to nail hosting and actually enjoy your own party'

By Richard Godwin, journalist and drinks expert

Cocktail parties are wonderful things – but all too often they’re wonderful for everyone except you, the host.

Even if you’re a dab hand at making cocktails, it’s surprisingly stressful trying to make three at the same time, let alone 28. The last thing you want is to spend your own party flustered and sticky-fingered as fresh waves of thirsty guests hit the kitchen.

Happily, there is a solution: batching. Choose two or three recipes – and commit. All it takes is a little forward-planning, a careful ice strategy, judicious use of punch bowls and jugs – and faith that your guests can serve themselves.

If you’re a detail-focused perfectionist, let me manage your expectations at this point. These drinks aren’t going to be ultra-polished. But as long as each person is handed something cold and strong as soon as they walk in the door, you won’t be getting any complaints.

Here’s how to nail your batch cocktails and actually enjoy your own party.

Make a load of ice – then make some more

Whichever drinks you’re serving, please – make sure you have at least a glacier’s worth of ice ready. There’s nothing worse than a lukewarm cocktail. Even more helpful to know though, is that substandard alcohol can taste surprisingly great if it’s super cold.

So, start filling your freezer now. You can use regular ice cube trays for this – decant the cubes into plastic bags and then make some more. But any plastic container will do. I usually freeze ice in large lumps and then hack them into smaller pieces with a knife, storing for later. Either way, come party time, you want a whole compartment of your freezer full of ice.

Don’t sweat the glassware

I usually recommend freezing your glasses before serving cocktails. This isn’t practical at a large gathering – so (I hate to go on, but) make sure you’ve plenty of ice. Also, don’t worry too much if you end up serving martinis in wineglasses or negronis in egg cups. It’s part of the house party charm.

Prep the garnishes

Nevertheless, it is worth taking the time to pre-cut some lemon twists, lime slices, grapefruit wedges, and whatever else you might need. It shows you care.

Make a punch

As any 18th century bon viveur could have told you, the centrepiece of any convivial gathering is the ‘flowing bowl’. The same remains true in the 21st century.

Punch not only makes things easy for the host – it’s almost unconscionably delicious. Make a traditional rum punch on the afternoon of your gathering and ice it just before the first guests arrive. Make extra, actually – it’s never a bad thing to have leftovers of this stuff.

Embrace the jug

You can scale-up just about any cocktail in a jug, especially highball-type drinks like the paloma or the dark and stormy. Just multiply the quantities by whatever number is appropriate to the gathering – and add the fizzy element to the jug at the last possible moment to make sure it doesn’t go flat. Ice the jug itself as well as each individual glass.

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Try the Milano-Torino trick

You can always pre-batch part of a cocktail. One of the most useful batches to know is the Milano-Torino (Mi-To), a 50/50 mix of Campari (or similar) and Italian-style red vermouth.

Prepare a jug of this – well-iced, of course – and you can adapt for each guest. Top with gin for a negroni; with bourbon for a boulevardier; with fizzy water for an Americano – or with prosecco or champagne for a negroni sbagliato.

…or the French 75 trick

A French 75 is a wonderful thing to place in the hand of each arriving guest. Again, all you need to do is pre-batch the base-mixture – in this case gin-lemon-sugar.

Shake, decant into a jug (well-iced!) and then top up with prosecco (or champagne) for each guest.

Don’t neglect the non-drinkers

It’s always a good idea to have a non-alcoholic option on hand – if only because the non-drinkers remember events better than everyone else.

A classic Shirley Temple batches up well in a jug (it’s particularly good with homemade grenadine). Or if you want something wintery and warming, try a vat of winter cup or mulled apple juice. You can always throw in a shot of rum to repurpose it, too.

Keep a bottle aside

It’s fun to keep a discreet little ‘house special’ to one side. If it’s Christmas, a bottle of prebatched eggnog might be the thing.

But the classy move is to pre-mix a bottle of gin martini and keep it in the freezer until the right moment: 500ml gin, 100ml dry vermouth, 100ml water should do it. To serve, simply pour straight from the freezer into a cocktail glass and garnish with a green olive or lemon twist as preferred. You’ll thank yourself later.

Delegate

Finally, it’s hard work to keep everyone optimally lubricated alone. So, enlist a trusted friend or two to make sure the ice bucket is topped up, the fizz circulates, the punch is replenished, and so on. People like being given responsibilities. And you need to make sure you have time to get stuck into your creations.

Originally published December 2025

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