I know that a lot of people won't drink very much, and some folks will leave shortly after dinner - but a lot of folks ARE planning to camp overnight and could still be drinking around the bonfire well into the early morning. A lot of the wedding & event planning sites assume that you are going to have a time limit for the reception (out of the ballroom by 11pm, etc.) but that just doesn't apply to us.
According to evite.com's drink calculator, for a 6 hour party with 150 average-drinking guests (we'll assume that the heavy drinkers and the light/non-drinkers balance out), we need:
18 1-liter bottles of liquor (that's about 325 shots)Does this seem reasonable to you guys? Is it enough, or not enough?
70 750ml (normal sized) bottles of wine (about 350 glasses)
350 bottles of beer (1 standard keg = aprox 165 bottles)
about 400 8 oz servings of mixers, juice, water and soda
plus hot coffee, tea & cocoa for the evening
I'm particularly wondering about the liquor and the wine. We are planning to have 2 standard kegs of beer from Boundary Bay, plus Gabe, Nick & Tombi are bringing a couple of batches of homebrew. Assuming 350 bottles is a good estimate of how much we'll need, then we're covered on beer.
There are a couple of important points to consider on the liqour:
1. We can return un-opened liquor bottles for a refund, so it is preferable to overbuy than not to have enough.As for wine, well, there are worse things than having a bunch of left-over wine in the pantry, so again, it's better to overbuy than to run out. Also, we can give away unopened bottles as "Thank You" gifts to all the folks who are volunteering to help out. The big question is how much of each color. I have read sites that say to have 2:1 white over red, sites that say just the opposite, and some that simply say to have equal amounts of each. Personally, I prefer red wine about 80% of the time, but that's just me... and I'm certainly not going to be the only one drinking all this wine!
2. I figure we should have Tequila, Rum, Gin, Wiskey and Vodka, but how much of each kind? Equal proportions, or what? What about subtypes, like silver/gold tequila, or scotch/rye/bourbon?
3. What about things like Khalua, Peppermint Schnaps, Grand Marnier, etc.? Should we stock a few bottles of that sort of thing for mixing up fancier cocktails? Or just stick to standard mixers like Coke, 7-up, tonic water, ginger ale, orange juice, cranberry juice and lemonade?
For toasting purposes I'm thinking Mead instead of Champagne. Sure, champagne bottles are fun to open, but I don't know anybody who actually enjoys drinking it. We'd need 30 bottles (x 5 glasses per bottle) to make sure that everyone can raise a glass to us. I'm going to contact HoneyMoon in Bellingham to see if we can get any kind of a deal from them for that. But in the meantime, one more question: should I subtract the 30 bottles for the toast from the 70-bottle wine allotment, or consider it a separate thing entirely?
Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
3 comments:
OK, first thing I have to say is:
YOU Fing ROCK!!! You are the planner extrordinaire and should consider going into business on the side as a wedding planner.
Now for my official semi-professional opinion regarding alcohol.
1. Stick to the basics: there's no need to have extra fancy liquors around. If there is a particular drink you like that requires a liqueur, buy it in a moderate amount and when it runs out, the basics are awesome. The basic mixers are going to be cola, orange juice, cranberry juice, tonic and soda. Definitely have limes and lemons prepped (I would be happy to help with this) and don't sweat the other stuff. As far as brands and types of liquor, how much money do you want to spend? Do you want to be able to take shots of tequila or just use it for mixing? Sauza Hornitos is a good middle-priced tequila. I think it's about $30 a fifth. If you want something a little better, Tres Generaciones Anejo is nice but I think a little more expensive. If you want a decent tequila that isn't going to cost a bunch, go with something like Cuervo 1800 Reposado. In my opinion, AVOID silver/plata/blanca tequila. It's not as good as people want to think it is. Call me, let's talk.
2. Talk to Emily as she will have some suggestions as well.
3. Wine: Since you're serving fish and beef for dinner, have an equal amount of red and white. Traditionally, red goes with beef and white goes with fish.
That's all for now...
4. Beer: Just to clarify on the homebrew situation: Erik Mapes and I are collaborating on the brewing project. There will be about 4 gallons of liquorice-honey porter and about 4 gallons of scotch ale. No guarantees on quality, although all indicators point to a tasty, if slightly immature brew. I'm not exactly sure what Nick and Tombi are doing, but I think they're likely to bring a pony-keg of beer from a local brewery, which is a good idea in case the homebrew is less than successful.
Tombi confirmed that they are not doing any homebrew, which is just fine considering that we will have two full kegs from BB (one of which is courtesy of Brian & Abby). I have no doubt that the homebrew will be excellent... :) so we're well set for beer.
Cary and I went in to HoneyMoon the other night and came home with three cases of raspberry mead (Sooooo yummy!) so we've got the toast under control as well.
Between Emily and Aimee's excellent advice, I'm starting to feel like I know what we need on the liquor front, too. One of these days I'll have to make a trip to the local WSLCB store...
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