Birthday Mixology + Streamer Love

Last night, Michael and I threw ourselves a birthday party.  No shame.  Our birthdays are fairly close (23 days apart), and I was looking for an excuse to decorate our place (I'm so into streamers right now it's not even funny.  Which, yeah, I know is weird.)  and force people to have fun within a prescribed theme of my choosing. 
I'm not sure what the theme was exactly, but the jist was that we infused some booze and asked our friends to come prepared to mix up some creative concoctions of their choosing using our booze.  Michael had no faith that our friends would come through, but as I suspected, they totally did. 

So, anyway, here's some of the graphic designings that I threw together for the evening and some photos of the set-up, which involved some creative furniture rearranging and, subsequently, a completely perturbed kitty.

the invitation, which we sent out via e-mail

the labels for our infused booze

a recipe card for our guests to share their concoctions

Ugh, I'm so awful at food photography that I'm hesitant to even share these photos.  We basically just lifted these ideas from some of our favorite appetizers. 

The first was smoked salmon with egg salad served on toasted baguette.  Seriously, don't knock til you've tried it.  We first had this combination at brunch a couple of weeks ago, and it's a-mazing!

The second was endive with sliced almonds, mandarin oranges, goat cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper.  So delicious and refreshing. 

Try both of these. Do it.  We also had bread, homemade butter, nuts, savory shortbread, shrimp, etc in an effort to keep people's stomachs full in order to avoid things going south quickly (We're talking about a cocktails-only party here, people! Very risky.). 

And so that our friends' creativity (and/or research skills) doesn't go to waste, here's some of my favorite ideas that came out of the evening:

Melon Limeade

3 parts Melon Vodka

1.5 parts Sweet & Sour Mix

1 part Sprite

1 squeeze Lemon Juice

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with lemon slice and cherry.

2 parts Bacon Bourbon

1 part Lime Juice

.5 part Simple Syrup

3-4 dashes Tobasco Sauce

Mix lime, syrup, and bourbon.  Shake on ice.  Pour in tumbler and dash Tobasco on top.  (Optional) Garnish with bacon.

French Martini

2 parts Pineapple Vodka

2 parts Pineapple Juice

.5 parts Chambord

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

My Bloody Summer Delight
3 parts Pineapple Vodka

3 parts Blood Orange Italian Soda

1 part Lemon Juice

In collins glass, pour ingredients over ice and stir.  Garnish with lemon wedge, and drink with adorable stripey straw (not optional).

WARNING:  If you decide to throw your own cocktail party, take it easy, because things can start to look like this very quickly...

Now I must go tend to the party's aftermath (which honestly, isn't that bad because apparently, as you get older, your friends become more responsible and considerate.  Who knew?!)

-----