Ah, booze. Many of us have fond and not so fond memories of booze. Well, this month I created a new event series with my group called, “TGIF”, Thank God It’s Friday. With my TGIF events, I highlight a specific liquor or spirit that we learn about, mix drinks with and well, celebrate the start of the weekend.
I hosted my first TGIF event tonight and the booze du jour was Gin. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was to structure this event, because really, I just wanted to hang loose. Some of my events are very structured where there is a definite education aspect but tonight I winged it…. and I’m go glad I did. Rather than boring folks with the history and details about gin or providing demos of how to make certain drinks using gin, I opened it up for folks to experiment.
I provided 3 types of gin & a vermouth, carbonated beverages, fruit nectars & juices and ice. It was a chance for folks to get hands on and concoct their own drinks and play with ingredients they may not have had the chance to try on their own.
To start everyone off with a drink, I made this drink on the fly, which I’ll call Joelen’s Gin Refresher:
2 parts mango nectar
highball filled with ice
ginger ale
Fill highball with ice. Combine gin & nectar; stir.
Pour mixture over ice and top with ginger ale.
Dip/Spread Trio of Goat Cheese Olive Tapenade,Cilantro Cream and Blue Cheese Spread
from Louis (aka Joelen):
and Baba Ganhoush from Teresa:
Dubliner Irish Cheese Platter from Ann:
Garden Salad from Joelen:
After dinner we played a round of Foodie Fight and awarded the prize of the night… 
And we rocked out the end of the night with some Guitar Hero on the Wii!
What fun. I so never drink Gin so I think that would have been a good event for me so that I could play around with it.
What a fun idea for Friday nights! One of my girlfriends and I were thinking about doing a similar thing with a different kind of wine each time…so when we run out we’ll move on to hard liquor! 🙂 The food looks yummy too!
That sounds like fun! I have heard of a lot of people having similar parties. My parents aren’t party people (or foodies) but I hope to host some “when I grow up.”
Thatboy loves gin, but it alwyas tastes like bathwater to me.
wow what a fun night….great idea!
That looks like an incredibly fun evening. The food and drinks look delicious! What a great idea to use the fruit nectar as a mixer. Great way to kick off the weekend!
This sounds like SO much fun! What a great idea! 🙂 Oh, BTW, those cherry tartlets looked so yummy!
yum!! so much fun 🙂
What a fun event! I love it.