We have been planning a wine/beer/ 2 signature drinks bar (plus a non-alcoholic signature drink, lemonade, iced tea, coffee). We were very happy with our choices. Our venue is a historic site which allows alcohol/bar stocking with a state permit and licensed bartender(s).
But after navigating through our state's liquor permit requirements, it looks like bringing in hard liquor is very difficult and could easily double our bar budget. The wine/beer permit is easy and cheap. So we might need to switch to a beer/wine bar only, but do not want to give up on having 2 alcohol based signature drinks.
Other than sangria, do any of you have a recipe for a wine- (or beer-) based cocktail that you have tried and liked? The problem here is I do not drink --at all, and therefore can't experiment with different recipes. Although I fully plan to experiment on FI :-)
Thanks in advance.
Re: Ideas for wine/beer based sig drinks
Thank you! This was my first thought as well. Champagne with white punches look lovely too. You're right about a ton of recipes for them, I got a bit overwhelmed look through them all last night. I am trying to get a feel for what people actually like without turning FI into an alcoholic through recipe experimentation, ha ha.
Sangrias are lovely though.
http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/993359/shandy-lemonade-and-beer-cocktail-recipe
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/k99q05r0/raspberry-champagne-punch.html
Our venue only allowed beer & wine, no hard liquor so we were in the same situation. We had two different types of beer and three wines as well as two signature drinks, made from wine.
We did a red sangria and just skipped the brandy. You really couldn't tell the difference. We also did a white wine, raspberry lemonade spritzer. We mixed two sweet white wines with "Simply lemonade raspberry" and put fresh raspberries in it, and added in gingerale to give it a little fizz. It was DEEEEELISH.
Websites/blogs where our wedding has been featured:
http://www.dapperq.com/2013/11/a-very-dapper-wedding/
http://www.onabicyclebuiltfortwo.com/2013/10/wedding-christina-g.html
http://4realequalityweddings.com/2014/05/16/g-christina/