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Speakeasy Party Part 2: The Decor (You're Reading it!)
This weekend, my fiance and I had a Speakeasy Party at our apartment. Here are the fancies:
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| Hand-stamped labels on alcohol and food |
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| A full Do-It-Yourself Speakeasy Bar |
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| The tools to make yourself a Prohibition-era cocktail |
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| Hand-cut Orange Twists |
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| Meats, cheeses cut with alcohol, and macaroons |
And now that I've (hopefully) intrigued you, here's a play-by-play:
On Saturday morning, we had a delicious breakfast at Meli Cafe and then got some errands done to prepare for the party. Perhaps most importantly, we blew our life savings (okay, not really, but it always feels that way) at Cost Co. Remember when I mentioned that my fiance loves Cost Co?
We stocked up on flowers, because a party isn't a party without flowers everywhere. We got home and I immediately started breaking apart the white roses and blue hydrangeas to place in small jars and vases all over our apartment.
My cousin, Clara, showed up around 1pm, and we got to work on the details. I busted out my chalk board and stamp sets and we started transforming my apartment into a 1920s, Prohibition-Era Speakeasy.
We served our guests an assortment of prohibition-era-inspired foods. Slices of various cheddars cut with alcohol (wine, whiskey, porter - see above) were a hit, as was the goat cheese, chorizo, and coconut macaroons.
Clara taught me how to cut orange twists. Basically, you start at the top and spiral down toward the bottom. I used a short cut and went ahead and cut them really thick, then used kitchen scissors to cut down the center of each of the thick twists to make them thinner (this also meant there were more strands, which is good for a party). I felt totally classy doing this. Like, I'm a bona fide bartender now. Except that my cousin is the one with the true bar-related talent.
We set up a Do-It-Yourself Cocktail bar that included Gin, Whiskey, Scotch, Rum, Sparkling Water, Grenadine, Maraschino Cherries, Lemon Ginger Syrup, Lime Wedges, Lemon Wedges, Orange Twists, Angastora Bitters, and a few flavors of NuNaturals Stevia Syrup (the orange flavor was a big hit). We also used stamps to label the alcohol and cocktail items.
It was quite a spread and people seemed to adore the small details we added to the set up. Everything from hand stamped labels to striped paper straws.
As the arrival of our guests neared, we also whipped together a delicious 1920s Champagne Punch. I found multiple recipes online that claim to be Prohibition-era recipes, and they all seemed to include tea. Not sure why that's the case, but my cousin mentioned that a lot of the drink recipes during that time had to mask the intense flavor of home-brewed alcohol, so perhaps that's why there was so much tea presence in those recipes.
1920s Champagne Punch Recipe coming tomorrow!
To set the mood, we had old 1920s black and white films playing on the television (pictured is the movie Metropolis), and played music from the Pandora station for Big Band Jazz.
Not bad, eh? :)
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