Top Tips for DIY Wedding Bar

Lets heads up by saying that I know that this isn’t for everyone so I will start with our pro con list.

Cons:
1. It was hard work setting it up, we used costco and two different supermarkets which took time (and petrol) to get to and energy to lug the drinks about, from cart into car, car into house, move about house a bit, house into car, into venue. You get the idea. Perfect if you have people who love you who you want to love you a little less when the wedding is over!
2. And on that note, you will need help so it does mean asking more favours of probably the same group of people who you have already exploited quite a lot (i’m looking at you Mum!)
3. And finally you have to store it at home. In a fairy normal English house this can be quite a challenge and I was delirious with happiness when we could use our patio doors again because they weren’t being blocked by booze mountain!

yes this all (except the nappies) ended up in my house!

So onto the Pros:
1. Hiring it out is EXPENSIVE. Not just for you but for your guests too. We wanted to make sure everyone could have a good time and not worry. And for us and our family and friends that meant be able to freely have a drink. We have friends and family in all different stages of life and financial situations and we wanted to make sure everyone could enjoy our day without having that nagging can I afford this £10 G&T in the back of their mind!
2. We were also aware than any leftovers could come back to our house or be a fun perk for those wonderful people who did our clearing up! It’s nice to have a stack of fun drinks to dip into and makes entertaining post wedding feel like a breeze, it’s the gift to ourselves that just jeeps on giving!
3. It meant we could completely customise what we were serving and make sure our guests had what we knew they would like. I got to indulge making some flavoured gins which were a nice personal touch.
4. And for us it really reinforced the informal feeling we were shooting for in all of our wedding, everyone helped each other and it generally made people chat more than they would have otherwise.

This is what we decided to stock and we had ample leftovers. This may have been in part due to the day (34degrees is really hot in the UK) which meant that less spirits were drunk than if it had been a little cooler than the fires of hades!

24x Red wine
24x Rose win (we decided against white as neither of us like it and felt we had enough selection!)
30x Bubbles (some pink and some champagne, for toasts and because I do love a glass of bubbles!)
2x Hendricks gin
2x flavoured homemade gin
1x Jack Daniels honey whisky
1x Malibu (for one specific friend!)
1x absolute vodka
72x can IPA
100x corona
250x bottled still water
150x bottled sparking water
500x canned soft drinks
Different fruit squashes and elderflower cordial plus orange juice as we had children at our wedding.

We also provided welcome drinks, a pink juice and a pimms to roll along with doughnuts and pasties.

We had LOTS but all of the still waters and most of the soft drinks got drunk. No one touched the spirits (except homemade variants thankyouverymuch!) but again I would put that more down to the weather than the crowd!

Some things you will need for your bar that could be easy to forget, napkins for those little spills, straws (paper because millennial!), bottle openers and corkscrews (have more than one because loosing or breaking one would be a disaster!) and some emergency plastic cups, for later in the evening when you can’t find a cup!

We also bought pouring measures for the spirits from amazon to prevent anyone getting crazy with the free pour (you know we have all done that at a party) and that’s when things can get funky!

This isn’t for everyone but having a DIY bar was fun for us and hopefully with these tips it could be fun for you too! What would you have on your DIY bar?

Fizz
xoxo

Flavoured Gins

Making flavoured gins is a quick and easy way to add some personality to your home bar or to package up for great personalised gifts. These are two very simple summer recipes but I have also had great success with rosemary, citrus and of course hedgerow fruit (like sloes and blackberries.)

I used the basic recipe from good food and then tweaked it for what I had to hand.

Basic recipe:

1kg fruit (trimmed and chopped into 1″ pieces)
400g caster sugar
800ml gin (i’m cheap by nature so always either use what I have or a supermarket own brand, don’t hate me!)

I used rhubarb for one and frozen mixed berries for the other. Just dump the fruit, sugar and gin into a large glass jar close the lid and shake it every couple of days until the sugar has all dissolved. I let mine infuse for 4 weeks before straining through a muslin into bottles I had saved and cleaned out for the purpose.

The rhubarb came up a pretty pink but the mixed berry came out red and when it’s diluted looks like tizer but actually has a more grown up flavour than the rhubarb! Both slip down a treat when paired with tonic and have the advantage of having a slightly lower alcohol content- ideal for a hot summers day!

Have you tried making your own flavoured spirits?

Fizz
xoxo

Perfectly Pink Juice

Well mine isn’t quite pink more peach but darn doesn’t it still taste good!

I used this pink juice recipe as inspiration but had to do some substitutions to use ingredients we can easily get in the UK.

To make 2l of juice

1500ml pink lemonade
500ml pineapple juice
Heck tonne of ice
Lemon slices

Yes this isn’t even a recipe it’s a dump it in and slurp it down kind drink, very refreshing and not too sweet which is something many punches suffer from!

This is one of our welcome drinks for our cocktail hour (or in our cause doughnut and pastie hour!) served alongside pimms with a lemon slice and a gold paper straw!

I suppose the big question is should I add glitter to this punch? The answer is almost certainly yes!

Fizz
xoxo