Cocktails with Friends

Unfortunately, no, not all cocktails are good candidates for making ahead, but there are a lot of them that are! Pretty much any stirred, all-spirit cocktails can be batched; think Martinis, Negronis, Manhattans, Old Fashioneds, and the like. The key to batching these cocktails is diluting with water ahead of time since you won’t be stirring the drink over ice a la minute. In general you want to add about 25% water by volume of the other ingredients, but this is assuming you’re serving the drink “up,” so if you’re pouring it over ice you may want to decrease the amount. Never pre-batch cocktails containing fruit juice or fresh herbs; the fruit juice will lose flavor and separate, and the herbs will start to taste—and look—muddy.

For the most part, no. The key to prebatching cocktails is to achieve the ideal level of dilution ahead of time and then hold the drink at the proper serving temperature. If the drink is already diluted and you add ice, it can get overly watery and weak. A few exceptions are if you’ve planned to serve your drink over ice and diluted it less to account for this, or if the drink is going to be sitting out at room temperature in its serving vessel for more than 30 minutes, like a punch might at a party. In the case of the latter, big ice cubes are your friend. Larger cubes mean less surface area and thus slower dilution, so they’ll keep the batch of drinks at temperature without watering them down. Get your hands on a 2-inch silicone ice cube tray and add about 6 of these large cubes—sometimes called “king” cubes—to your bowl or pitcher.

Our basic rule of thumb is that batched cocktails can be stored for up to a month in the fridge. Any longer than this and the flavors start to deteriorate. Any cocktails containing juice should be mixed right before drinking, but you can squeeze the juice up to a day ahead. For cocktails containing a fizzy ingredient like seltzer or sparkling wine you can mix the other components ahead of time and add the chilled bubbly at the last minute.

Definitely serve punch—it’s the ultimate party drink! Your crystal punch bowl may be antique but as long as you mix an updated libation it won’t feel old fashioned. Steer clear of overly complicated recipes that add everything but the kitchen sink, and avoid artificially sweetened juices and sodas. Unless you want to get really kitsch sherbet has no place in the punch bowl! Reach for high quality ingredients like fresh fruit, good liqueurs, and sparkling wines, but a punch is not the place to break out that fancy bottle of champagne. Finally, it’s a cocktail, yes, but keep the booziness in check; you don’t want to be policing the punch bowl all night to keep your guests from over-imbibing.