Single Serving Cocktails: Safer Than Punch

The holidays are a busy time in our house. Lots of entertaining, being entertained, drinking, eating, laughing. Last month I did a project for Sauce Magazine for a section called “Make-Ahead Holiday” which featured the Day Boating Cocktail by mixologist Cory Cuff (currently at Cielo in the Four Seasons Hotel here in St. Louis). The concept is pretty simple: instead of spending the whole evening behind the bar mixing up drinks, mix up a whole batch of a single cocktail the day before, then portion it out into single servings in cute little bottles which can be kept on ice until needed.

Why not just make punch, you may ask? I’ll tell you why. I don’t know about your parties, but at my house there is always at least one person who over-serves themselves with the punch. That one person is usually me. And then there is often some poor unsuspecting light drinker who doesn’t realize exactly how much booze goes into a batch of Fish House Punch and wakes up the next morning at the zoo in the panda cage. Or at least wakes up with a wicked hangover. I was all into the punch for a while, but the idea of dosing out the cocktails with a little more ceremony than simply dunking a cup into a punchbowl seems like a good idea.