Kiwiblog

As much of a competition rub by Asia-Pacific Breweries, I organised a Drink Savvy party, and blogged about it here and here and here.

The competition for drink savvy ideas is still open until 31 March, but I am pleased to announce that I won the parallel competition between bloggers for hosting the best drink savvy party in January. I am obviously very pleased about this, as the prize is a S$3,000 holiday for two to Australia.

Yet to get exact details, but it looks like it includes Sydney and the Whitsunday Islands.

Yay!

Further to my own hosting of a drink savvy party, a reminder that people can submit their own drink savvy ideas to win a trip for two to the Whitsunday islands. Entries are extended to 31 March 2010.

Those interested can also follow on social media – Facebook, Orkut or Twitter.

Well New Years came, and luckily the weather forecast was incorrect – it was a lovely warm day, so he decision to start around 4 pm with a bbq was a goodie.

Now first we had to make up the three punches:

Drivers’ Punch

This is a variation of the cocktail Falling Water, now named Dripping Tap!

A cocktail shaker with 1/2 a cut lime and a few mint leaves per glass, 1/2 fill the vessel with ice, add a long slice of cucumber, top up with Chi.

These did indeed prove a hit with the drivers, and a fair few non drivers also. Very cool and refreshing.

Pedesterians’ Punch

This is a variation of the popular Rose Bud cocktail.

Pour into the bowl 3 parts vodka, 1 part strained passion fruit pulp, 1 part fresh orange juice, stir until well mixed, add 4 parts cranberry juice and 4 parts pineapple juice and mix. Serve in a tall glass filled with ice and garnish with lime wedges.

I love cranberry juice so found this punch very drinkable. Was brilliant for a hot sunny day.

Passengers’ Punch

A slightly doctored Lynchberg Lemonade.

Pour into the bowl3 parts Jack Daniels, 2 parts freshly squeezed orange juice and 2 parts lemon juice, mix and top up with ice and lemonade, and and add lime wedges to garnish.

Now this one was definitely only for those not driving, and for lemon fans – with lemonade, lemon and lime all together.

Now no party is complete with drink alone, and when the co-organiser is a chef, there are few complaints about the food.

The early arrivals got whitebait sandwiches. Yum, yum, yum. A certain Mr Browne demolished around a third of them – I swear he has a West Coast soul in a Levin body

The whitebait may have gone early, but few people complained about having to cope with oysters and salmon only

The irony is that Chef Aimee doesn’t like seafood herself – but she loves cooking it. No wonder Chris married her.

As it got darker, we moved inside.

And to complement the punches, we had the full range of beer available. Mac’s Light 1% which actually was damn pleasant. Rarely go wrong with Macs. Speights provided the main 4% beer, and we had a few select bottles of Bavaria 8.6% and Crest 10% beer. I’ve had a couple of elephant beers in the past, but had ot had a Crest before. You certainly don’t want to spend your night on them, but they were good to try.

All in all it was a fun night. As the night before was New Years Eve we started early figuring people wouldn’t want to have too long a night, but it still went on for around seven hours, and was a damn nice way to start off the new decade.

Even though the party was part of a competition, I’m keen to do a repeat at some stage as I liked the idea of different punches for different people – gave people something to talk about, but also made sure everyone could work out their own safe drinking level.

Incidentally I’m now off to a beach for a few days (from tomorrow), so depending on wireless connectivity, might be light blogging for a while. But there may be the odd guest blogger also.

A wee while ago I was approached by Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd and asked if I would like to host a “responsible drinking” or “drink savvy” party, and blog about it.

This sounded a fun challenge, even without the chance to win a trip for two to Aussie thrown in. Any excuse for a party, as they say.

Now a drink savvy party is a bit more of a challenge than a normal party. Anyone can arrange a normal party – just just text a dozen mates and say BYO

So a planning committee of myself, Chris and Amie was convened. We decided to hold it at Chris and Amie’s as they have a sheltered back yard, ideal for parties.

The first decision was the date. Initially I was thinking New Years Eve, but figured that it is more fun on NYE to just head into town for the big parties. So we decided to have the party on New Years Day itself – a sort of recovery from the night before party.

Figured after NYE, people wouldn’t want to be up too late, so we have gone for a start time of 4 pm – enjoy some afternoon sun.

Then came the big challenge. As readers will know I’m not greatly into nanny state restrictions around alcohol sales etc, and am a free market sort of person.

So that got me thinking – free markets work best with perfect information. So the drinks for the party would be clearly arranged to allow party goers to make the best decisions for themselves, rather than nanny state.

We decided to put together three mixtures of punch:

1. A non-alcoholic punch, knowns as the drivers’ punch. Very yummy but alcohol free, so drivers of all ages are safe to drive
2. A punch with a bit of a kick, known as the passengers’ punch. This would be ideal for those who just have to get into and out of a car to get home. Allows them to have fun, without worry.
3. The third punch would be an in-between punch – alcoholic, but not too strong. I wanted to call this the cyclists’ punch , but in the end we settled for calling it the pedestrians’ punch. If you are walking home, you want to be happy, but not too happy.

Following this theme, we also went for three types of beer:

1. 1% low alcohol beer
2. Normal 4% beer
3. A few selected bottles of Bavarian beer – details in a later post

So I got dispatched to the supermarket for the party purchases. The list:

• 2 kg of oranges
• 2 kg of lemons
• 1 kg of limes
• 1 bag of mint
• 1 cucumber
• 2-3 large bottles of Chi
• 2 bottles of Schweppes Classic Dry Lemonade
• 1 vodka
• 1 Jack Daniels
• 1 large bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice
• 1 large bottle of pineapple juice
• 300-400 grams of passion fruit pulp
• Assorted Beer
• Diet Coke
• Apple Juice
• Lots and lots of cheerios
• Three big bag of chicken drumsticks

Took me a while to find the mint (I mean seriously!) and got the purchases back to the venue:

Hopefully the weather will be as good tomorrow as it was today.  We then discovered a threat to the party:

Chicken drumsticks and CoCo the dog make a bad combination. We managed to rescue the chicken in time, and gave her some cheerios instead.

Tomorrow will be the making of the three punches, and then the party itself.