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Recommendations for wines and signature cocktails??

ebaer88ebaer88 member
Ninth Anniversary 10 Comments Combo Breaker
in Wedding Reception Forum
Hello!  We're trying to keep costs down on our reception and have been told that a good way to do this while still having an "open" bar is to have a few signature drinks for guests to choose from in addition to beer/wine.  

We're getting married September 7th, 2013 on my family farm and our reception will be in a tent out in the fields. Our reception will be in-formal, we're doing a BBQ dinner with a dessert bar.. any suggestions for fun (easy) signature drinks? We'll have lemonaid, iced tea and sweet tea available as well (and water, of course). We both have a sweet tooth, so suggestions for non-so-sweet cocktails would be appreciate as well.  Also, any recommendations for some good inexpensive wines? We'd like a red and a white.. but as we prefer the sweeter wines are having a really hard time deciding what our guests would best like.  Sealed

Really, any suggestions would be MUCH appreciated!  Thanks!  :)
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Re: Recommendations for wines and signature cocktails??

  • NOLAbridealmostNOLAbridealmost member
    2500 Comments 500 Love Its Third Anniversary Name Dropper
    Do you have a trader joes nearby? 2 buck chuck is pretty tasty and very affordable. Maybe Firefly Vodka w/ lemonade would be refreshing a summer cocktail and fit with the BBQ theme.
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  • Ella and PedroElla and Pedro member
    Fifth Anniversary 500 Comments 25 Love Its Combo Breaker

    I think you should match cocktail flavors with other flavors.

    Here are our sigature drinks, which we are offering as a Martini Bar.  We choose this because it meant we only needed to buy a few types of liquor and could create a range of flavors. 

    So we're buying Bailey's irish creme liquor, vermouth, vodka, cointeau, and godiva chocolate liquor, mango puree, Hersey's syrup, blood orange juce, fresh mint, lime juice, olives, olive brine liquid, lavender sprigs, wild flower honey, vanilla extract, and Bailey's Irish Creme chocolate mint sticks. 

    Our martinis are:

    White Chocolate-Mint Martini
    Blood Orange Mango Martini
    Double-Dirty Triple Olive Martini
    and
    Honey Vanilla Lavender Martini

    The White Chocolate-Mint and Blood Orange-Mango are both also being offered virgin. We just googled for assorted fun martini recipes, and picked these from the twenty-five or so we found.  There are SO  MANY - peach, pear, grape, cucumber-basil, green apple, etc.  You should definitely offer a virgin "FUN" drink for children and so forth.  They would love to feel they too have a specialty drink, I think.

    For a BBQ, what I think would be fun is to get big glass apothocary jars and have one choice be red wine/red fruit (blueberries, raspberries, purple grapes) sangria, another be white wine/white fruit (peach, white grapes, kiwi), and a third choice be long island iced tea wth lemon slices.  You could have the fruit infused but also have dishes on the side for people to add garnish.  Another idea for a BBQ is to have a keg, if it is permitted.  A good liquor store should be able to deliver, set-up, and pick-up.  Maybe a nice light summer ale.  Sam Adams has a good one (so I hear, not being a beer person.)

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  • hordolhordol member
    100 Love Its 100 Comments First Answer First Anniversary
    edited April 2013
    For wines, I think a Chardonnay or a Savignon Blanc would be the most universally appealing for white. For reds, maybe you should go with a red blend of some sort. Since there are a few different wines in there, most people will like it. Apothic red is a pretty popular red blend where I live, but you might want to ask a local liquor store what is most popular where you live.

    I don't know much about liquor so I can't chime in on that part, sorry. :)
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  • annmarie714annmarie714 member
    100 Comments Second Anniversary 25 Love Its Name Dropper
    We had a 2-3 types of red wines, 2-3 types of white wines, and kegs of beer.  I think Ella and Pedro's idea for sangrias, long islands, etc sounds like a fun but inexpensive option.  The long island iced tea goes with the farm theme (I always relate sweet tea to the country for some reason).
    Where there is love, there is life.-Ghandi
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  • alithebridealithebride member
    Ninth Anniversary 2500 Comments 25 Love Its Name Dropper
    please please please dont serve your guests sweet wines to drink with dinner. dh and i went to a wedding in missouri once and they did that. it was awful.
    head to your local liquor store and make friends with he guy who works there. ask his opinion. bring someone with you to taste them who knows a good wine from a bad.

    a chablis, pinot gris or sauvignon blanc are light whites. chardonnay, while popular, is also a polarizing wine-people love it or hate it as its a strong flavor especially when oaked.

    for reds i suggest a pinot noir, syrah, shiraz or just a good red table wine from italy or spain. stay away from merlot (same as chardonnay) and chianti (while it's my fave it's too dry and dark for a lot of people).

     

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