Help us decide what kind of bar to have at our wedding! Scroll down and leave a comment to vote.

This summer my new thing is about creating cocktails in pitchers with fruit and other delicious ingredients. I’m in love with the Pottery Barn pitcher that my mom purchased for me from a Seattle Outlet several weeks ago. Hopefully I’ll end up with around 3 pitchers for the summer so I can serve some different kinds of cocktails at my patio parties.

This past weekend I made a modified Brazilian kiwi caiprinha. A couple of my coworkers are from Brazil and they’ve been talking to me a lot about caipirinhas — so I got on the bandwagon. A Brazilian caipirinha is made from Brazilian cachaça which is a type of rum made in Brazil from sugar cane, mixed with fruit. This drink has a very full, rich flavour because of the cachaça. It’s similar to a mojito but a little bit spicier or heavier in flavour. It’s very refreshing and I love the fruit component. It’s by no means a very traditional caipirinha (because of the added soda water and apple liqueur), but it’s still delicious.

ALLIE’S BRAZILIAN KIWI CAIPIRINHA COCKTAIL RECIPE

- One large glass pitcher
- 6 ripe kiwis
- 6-8 oz of Brazilian cachaça, such as Sagatiba Pura (I found mine at the BC liquor store at Cambie and 41st)
- 3-4 oz Giffard’s Manzana Verde (apple liqueur, but any tart fruit juice would work fine like pear or apple juice)
- Two fresh limes, squeezed, and one lime cut up into thin slices
- 1/4 cup or less (sweeten to taste, I like less sweet) of raw cane sugar
- Three cans of club soda
- 1 large handful fresh mint

Mix everything in a pitcher and enjoy! Fill the pitcher with as much ice as possible… Works GREAT with summer BBQs.

In others new.. Allan and I have been doing a lot of thinking on the type of alcoholic bar to have at our wedding. We are trying to keep our costs down, but most of all want our friends to have a good time. It seems that everyone I talk to has a different opinion. Here are the different options we are looking at:

1. OPEN BAR: Everyone has as much to drink as they want, but runs the risk of getting “sloshy” or many unfinished drinks, also very expensive
2. TOONIE BAR: Perhaps give out a few free drink tickets, and then people pay $2 for an additional drink. More to prevent wasting of drinks and to prevent the party from getting out of control. Also helps pay some costs like the bartender fee. You can get a lot of drinks for 10 or 20 bucks, but hopefully it keeps people from wasting their drinks.
3. TICKET SYSTEM: Basically purchase a pre-set amount of tickets and hand out to guests accordingly. Could look cheap but prevents certain individuals from going overboard.

What do you think? What is the best system to have at a wedding? Any other ideas? Please vote below and help us decide!

There’s no possible way to capture a party properly in photos, especially when you are trying to host one… but we’ll do our best here. Thanks to John Biehler for graciously taking some photos during the event… they turned out great! Below you’ll see a mix of my photos and John’s photos. Hope you enjoy!

Photo Credit: John Biehler

As mentioned before, this past Friday, November 13th was my birthday party (on my actual birthday) as well as our (Allan and I) housewarming party. A 2-in-1 party that was a lot of fun to prepare for and host.

I would say that it was a success! Allan and I sat down and did the numbers. Over 230 people attended… a 50L of Granville Island “Island Lager” (approximately 146 bottles of beer… thank you Matty and Granville Island Brewery!) completely tapped, an additional 150 bottles of beer consumed, 4 x 1.75L bottles of Grey Goose, 4 bottles of Zaya rum, 4 boxes of Patron tequila, 4 bottles of Giffard’s Manzana Verde, a bottle of Hennessey XO cognac, Jameson 18 Irish Whiskey, and Glenfiddich 18 Scotch whiskey… completely drained. Not to mention over 40 more full bottles of liquor completely consumed. Phew! I would say we had some heavy drinkers at the party

Not to mention over 100 bottles and cans of mixers drained…

A fridge full of food eaten…

20 portions of cheese…

Even more beer and liquor brought by friends consumed…

4 bushels of mint used in cocktails…

10 pounds of chocolate…

50 homemade chocolate creme brulees…

Hundreds of bamboo plates, cutlery and napkins…

Over 20 sliced french baguettes, served with double creme d’Affinois brie and an assortment of jellies and toppings…

One litre of bocconcini with roasted tomatoes, basil, and flat leaf parsely…

40 boxes of homemade noodles and chicken…

20 beef tenderloin steaks…

50 macaroni and cheese muffins…

Many, many bags of popcorn…

15 homemade pizzas served…

Photo Credit: John Biehler

Over 100 homemade cookies baked on the spot and eaten…

Dozens of petit fours (bought, not made)… and that’s a lot of food!

Photo Credit: John Biehler

We had the outside patio decorated with white lights, dozens of candles and lanterns, and a couple patio heaters to stay warm! Luckily it didn’t rain so we didn’t need to put up the tent!

Photo Credit: John Biehler

And then, there were the drinks…

Freshly made mojitos…

Whiskey sours and whiskey on the rocks…

My signature martini (watermelon, pomegranate juice, apple liqueur, Grey Goose, lime, lemon, and mint… all blended with ice)…

Photo Credit: John Biehler

Photo Credit: John Biehler

Many chocolate martinis served…

A “pom cosmo”…

Rum rita…

Irish coffee served with Jameson 18 whiskey, Italian Bodom-brewed coffee, freshly whipped cream, brown sugar, and topped with Butter vanilla and coffee marshmallows toasted with a torch…

Irish car bombs…

Dark chocolate creme brulees, torched…

The full drink list for the party… (needless to say I spent the entire time behind the bar)

The dress I wore to the party… a pink and purple silk party dress by Meghan Los Angeles. Yes, it’s totally over the top and ridiculous, and definitely a “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To” dress… but I couldn’t resist.

Here’s the back of the dress… I really loved the bow and the low back on it!

Here’s the jewelry I wore… beautiful custom-made handcrafted silver crocheted pink Swarovski jewelry by Isabella Diamond here in Vancouver. The ring even lasted through all the drink mixing, haha.

Photo Credit: John Biehler

I also got to meet some fabulous bloggers in Vancouver for the first time… thanks to Raul, Liv, Greg, Mozy, Aidan, Kimm, Tyler, John, Jerk, Tawcan, and Josh for coming out!

Photo Credit: John Biehler

All in all the party was a lot of fun. We finally finished our apartment (pictures coming soon), and it was great to see all our friends out. Allan and I both had an amazing time. Thanks for reading this huge long post!