I love watching the Oscars, tweeting about the gowns, making my guesses for each category — but somehow, me, the entertaining-addict, has never thrown an Oscars party. This year, I’m breaking that streak and having a few friends over for a casual little viewing gathering. As no party is complete without a signature cocktail, I thought I’d experiment with one to make this weekend for sipping during the show. I’m calling my creation the “Golden Statue” for it’s pretty color and a nod to Oscar himself. Here’s how you can make one of your own: In a small pitcher combine one cup of tangerine juice, one-quarter cup of Royal Rose apricot simple syrup, and one-quarter cup of vodka. Stir it together well and divide into four flutes. Then fill the remainder of the flute to the top with chilled prosecco and serve! I made Oscar straws for a festive touch too! 
I got a few questions on the bourbon-soaked cherries that were featured in the Ladies Winter Whiskey Party over on Style Me Pretty this week, so I thought I’d share the recipe! Fill a mason jar with cherries, add in 3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar, fill 3/4 of the way with bourbon, and then top the rest off with some water. I let mine rest for about a week before using them, and they were a tasty garnish to our Ladies Manhattan cocktails and paired perfectly with the bourbon-caramel drizzled chocolate cake we had for dessert! Plus I picked up a few small corked jars (these cute ones from Target!) and made mini-versions that everyone could take home at the end of the event — I heard after that made a great topping at home on top of a bowl of vanilla ice cream, yum! 
Photos by Brian Samuels Photography
I have the delicious drink recipes from our Ladies Whiskey Party to share with you today! One of my favorite details from this day was the incorporation of the recipes into the event — I wrote the ingredients out on brown paper bags and tied them on whiskey bottles to match each drink so it was easy to identify each one. And because the idea of the party was all about sharing these whiskey drinks and making whiskey drinking a bit more approachable, we gave everyone a stack of recipe cards with the ingredients and instructions written out on them so they can recreate them at home. Now, onto those recipes!
Classic Whiskey Smash
- Half a lemon, cut into wedges
- 6 mint leaves
- .75 oz simple syrup
- 2 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon
In a shaker, muddle lemon wedges with mint leaves and simple syrup. Add ice and bourbon, shake vigorously. Strain over crushed ice and garnish with a tall mint leaf.
The Ladies Manhattan
- 2 oz Michter’s Rye
- .75 oz Dolin sweet vermouth
- .25 oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur
- 2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters
- Cherry garnish
Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, cherry garnish.
The Bee Keeper Punch
- 1.5 bottles Overholt Rye
- 16-18 oz fresh lemon juice
- 25 dashes bitters
- 2 cups honey spice simple syrup (go slowly to taste)
- 1 bottle inexpensive Prosecco
Combine first four ingredients and chill for several hours. Before serving add Prosecco. Serve over rocks with a twist of lemon. (To make simple syrup: 16 oz clover honey, 16 oz water, 1/4 cup mulling spices. Bring all ingredients to boil, turn off heat. Steep for 15-30 minutes. Strain the ingredients and cool the syrup.)
Cocktail Recipes, Ingredients, and Event Space: The Urban Grape, Photography: Brian Samuels, Vintage Glassware: Farm & Fable
One of my favorite things about this blog is the great people I get to meet and collaborate with on projects, like the one I’m sharing today. A few weeks back I worked with the Urban Grape to style a Ladies Whiskey Party, a little get together intended to share some recipes all around whiskey. Brian Samuels shot some amazing pictures of the spread — which included whiskey-glazed bacon BLTs and a bourbon caramel drizzled chocolate cake. And the lovely Abby of Farm & Fable lent us the prettiest vintage glassware to highlight the whiskey cocktails. The whole recap can be found over on Style Me Pretty Living today, but here are a few of my favorite pictures (check back tomorrow for the detailed drink recipes!).
We’ve had our fair share of cold winter nights this year, which means we’ve had to get creative with weekend plans and bring a few of our date-nights close to home. This weekend we had a little taste of summer with a coffee-table picnic. We had a plate of French cheeses — my sweet husband sent me a box of Murray’s Cheeses for Valentines Day (the way to my heart is Camembert, not roses!). We also had some local oysters, which I’ve always been intimidated to shuck on our own, but after some research on technique my husband mastered it in no time! The good news is the weather is warming up, so here’s hoping those newly obtained shucking skills are put to use at a real picnic soon.
Sometimes inspiration just comes in bursts, doesn’t it? I have been scooping up ideas from so many gorgeous parties around the web — like a darling garden party from Grey Likes Weddings — I need to dip-dye some napkins just like those! The color palette, the bows, the florals, and the stripes are all perfection in a Kate Spade-inspired bridal brunch. And a sweet little farmer’s market picnic party has my wheels turning for some spring-time fetes!
Lately I have been following along with Brottle, a year-long bottled cocktail project, that posts a new bottled cocktail recipe everyday on their instagram account. They post videos with step by step instructions of the recipes on YouTube too, and I’ve watched just about every one — they’re so cute, and the recipes are quick and easy. It’s an idea I can get behind, mix up a bigger batch to keep on your bar cart while entertaining, or bring it along with you as a little hostess gift to a party. And because everything is pre-mixed into one bottle, it makes those cocktail refills a little faster too! So after seeing their greyhound recipe last week, I decided it was time to join in on the fun and make one myself. I switched up the recipe and made my greyhound with 8oz of gin instead of vodka, and mixed it with 19oz of fresh grapefruit juice. Then once it was time to serve, I poured it over ice and garnished it with a fresh spring of thyme leaves. It was tasty — and now I have a little cocktail waiting for me in the fridge after work tomorrow too!
I thought I’d share a few snaps of our New Years Eve party before heading off for the weekend. I will be honest, I was a little frazzled getting ready for our annual party this year, I was nursing a cold, my balloons were deflating from the super-cold weather, and I forgot to bake a few of my appetizers! So when I realized guests would be arriving in just a few minutes, I zoomed around and snapped a few quick phone pictures and called it a day. But I don’t think anyone seemed to notice, we popped champagne, ate lots of snacks (I made homemade soft pretzels that were a hit), and even danced to a little Ke$ha in the living room after the ball dropped — a success in my book! Hope you had a fabulous New Year, can’t wait to see what 2014 has in store! 
Yesterday I shared a quick DIY for upgrading store-bought party horns for the countdown to midnight. I had similar feelings about the poor selection of New Year’s Eve crowns at the party store and decided to whip up a few of my own. Using a store-bought crown as a template, I traced the bottom portion of the paper crown and then drew my own message for each crown. Using a sharp knife, I cut out the message from glitter scrapbook paper. Then I simple attached the cardboard cut-out piece with the two tabs I left and a few staples to the original crown headband! I can’t wait to pass these out to guests at the party!
It’s party-prep time for our annual New Year’s Eve shindig, and I was out this weekend looking for pretty favors but was disappointed in so many of the options at my local party store. So I decided to grab some plain-jane party horns from Target and give them a 5-minute upgrade. Using sparkly gold alphabet stickers from the scrapbook section of the craft store, I customized the part horns with festive messages — a super simple DIY! I’m going to put them in a vase on our bar for decoration and then pass them out at midnight.
