{diy champagne cocktail bar}

As you may have noticed from reading this blog, I love champagne cocktails. A lot. I have been wanting to have a DIY champagne cocktail bar for the longest time, but we just haven't had the right type of party to warrant one until our engagement party last weekend at Chris' parent's home.

First I started out by deciding which cocktails to include and of course a classic champagne cocktail was an obvious choice.   I also really wanted to use St. Germain liqueur in one of the cocktails, partly because it tastes so good and partly because the bottle is really pretty.  I debated on the third cocktail option for a while, jumping back and forth between a Blackerry Royale or a cocktail with Domaine de Canton which is a ginger liqueur.  Ultimately I went with the Blackberry Royale since I figured most people wouldn't be very familiar with ginger liqueur or wouldn't want to try it.

Here are links to the cocktail instructions that I framed in these Ikea frames which we spray painted gold - you can drop these images into a word document and size them for whatever frame you choose to use:

• Classic Champagne Cocktail recipe Instructions
• Blackberry Royale Cocktail Instructions
• The Elderflower Cocktail Instructions

 I really believed that only the ladies at the party would be interested in making a champagne cocktails for themselves, but I was shocked to see that almost everyone at the party tried it out and most people tried out all three!  The only thing I would do differently next time is instead of doing straws as decoration in the flutes, I would do stir sticks or nothing at all.  Let's face it- the straws were pure decoration and I never really intended people to actually drink through them. (also they come pretty close to poking your eye out while you try to sip from the glass which is not exactly ideal.)

{chris, me, and my beautiful mother right after we set up the champagne cocktail bar}

Cheers!