Making Signature Cocktails for your wedding

Remem­ber as a child mix­ing potions out of mud, sham­poo and your mum’s most expen­sive per­fume? Cre­at­ing a sig­na­ture cock­tail for your wed­ding is the grown up equiv­a­lent, accord­ing to Liq­uid Spirit!

So here’s an inter­est­ing idea for those of you who are hav­ing a wed­ding at home, or have a lit­tle flex­i­bil­ity with the bar at your venue: make your own sig­na­ture cock­tail to cel­e­brate your wed­ding day and then keep the recipe to recre­ate the moment on every wed­ding anniversary!

It only takes a lit­tle plan­ning to do, and if the two of you enjoy a tip­ple you could have a very pleas­ant evening ‘design­ing’ your wed­ding cock­tail and for­get­ting the trau­mas of guest lists and wed­ding bud­get spread­sheets! Over to Liq­uid Spirit for a guest blog post to fire your imaginations…

Why not serve your own sig­na­ture cock­tail to your wed­ding guests? Immor­talise your wed­ding by cre­at­ing a cock­tail to com­mem­o­rate your big day and to share with fam­ily and friends for years to come.

Ten tips for cre­at­ing your own com­mem­o­ra­tive wed­ding cocktail

1 — Stay true to your event

Remem­ber where you and your part­ner met, how you got engaged, what are your likes and dis­likes? Make your­self a list together and go and buy some sup­plies from your local supermarket.

2 — Cel­e­brate your history

If you have Brazil­ian ances­try, con­sider Cachaça. Part Scot­tish? Scotch. Russ­ian her­itage? Vodka. Chi­nese fore­bears? Sake, you get the pic­ture. Remem­ber to research your spir­its wisely as local pro­duce will sup­port your roots more than an inter­na­tional brand, i.e. don’t think there is that much Cuban inter­est in Bacardi.

3 — Lis­ten to your palate

What do you like, sweet or sour, sparkling or still, light or strong, clear or dark? Your wed­ding cock­tail is usu­ally intended to be enjoyed by your guests as well but don’t for­get this is one drink you will want to recre­ate for the rest of your life.

When exper­i­ment­ing, try to achieve a con­trast in the drink by com­bin­ing some­thing sweet with some­thing sharp. E.g. fruit liqueur with lemon juice. The result is likely to be more palat­able. The most suc­cess­ful cock­tails achieve this bal­ance. Con­sider the visual tex­ture, consistency/density, colour, palata­bil­ity, aroma, taste and presentation.

4 – Local & Seasonal

Find gar­nishes and local liqueurs in your mar­ket to make your drink locally sourced and eco­log­i­cally friendly. Flavoured vod­kas are a good spirit to research as they can match any ingre­di­ent and pro­vide a flavour for all occasions.

Flow­ers also play a major role in everyone’s wed­ding but why restrict them to the cer­e­mony? Gar­nish your cock­tail with a flower for a beau­ti­ful flo­ral touch to your com­mem­o­ra­tive cocktail.

5 – If you think out­side the box, destroy the box

Go nuts! Con­sider out­landish cock­tails with that added wow fac­tor; con­sider flam­ing orange zests, wild orchids, bacon infu­sions and pos­si­bly a whole banana as a gar­nish. Who said a cock­tail couldn’t be served out of a glass slipper?

6 – Nostalgia

Research old cock­tails, the Man­hat­tan, Ves­per, Old Fash­ioned and Saz­erac are becom­ing pop­u­lar once again. Try invent­ing a mod­ern twist on a clas­sic; include your family’s name­sake or the area your event is in. The Smiths’ Some­thing Blue, the Oxford Wed­ding Bell or The Masons Eternal.

7– Sim­plic­ity

Too many clash­ing flavours can ruin a drink, no mat­ter of the qual­ity of the ingre­di­ents. It’s use­ful to know that many mixed drinks con­tain a liquor base, a liqueur and juice. The gar­nish is added for eye-appeal. A Cos­mopoli­tan is dou­ble vodka, a sin­gle Triple Sec and a dou­ble cran­berry juice. A dash of lime is added to zest it and a lemon twist is added to the glass to make it more appeal­ing. This for­mula is tried, tested and easy to adapt.

8 — Fashion

Have a look at mod­ern restau­rant menu’s or up-to-date cock­tail guides. Pome­gran­ate is in right now and if you’re a per­fec­tion­ist you could research Japan­ese tools and tech­niques, inspired by East Asian tea cer­e­monies’ atten­tion to detail add to the lux­ury of craft­ing slow drinks. Have a Google of it and pon­der no longer!

9 – Have Fun!

This should not be a chore; this should hark back to child­hood days of ‘mix­ing potions’. Play­ful exper­i­men­ta­tion should be the cor­ner­stones of your cock­tail cre­ation. Just get some ingre­di­ents with your part­ner and start play­ing around, there are much worse ways to spend a Fri­day night after all! Remem­ber to jointly cel­e­brate your likes and don’t stress out about pleas­ing any­one in particular.

10 – The Golden Rule, never forget:

“A cock­tail will never be bet­ter than its cheap­est ingre­di­ent.”
– David A. Embury (1948)

Could not have said it bet­ter myself. Hope this gives you some inspir­i­ta­tion.
Please visit Liq­uid­Spirit for more tips on cock­tail creation.