Entertaining

The dinner party, idealized as an endless night of drinking and eating, for hosts is very often a sweaty night spent dashing between the kitchen and bar. When we set out to start Twisted Alchemy, we wanted to find ways to answer the age old question- how to provide quality without logging hours of kitchen time. How could we give our guests a delicious margarita and be able to enjoy it with them? Short answer: our Three Citrus Margarita Mix. Long answer: discovering accessible ways to have the highest quality ingredients prepared long before the doorbell rings. Long gone are the hours of muddling sugar cubes or boiling simple syrup. Enter, instead, our Rich Demerara Syrup- and longer hours spent chatting with friends.

There is nothing like gathering loved ones together over beautiful food and drink. It is the motivating force behind so much of what we do in the service industry- the value of connection that is facilitated by the intimate experience of breaking bread.

The roots of the dinner party, like many great human traditions, are so long they dissolve into their own history, becoming something more like an instinct than a phenomenon. Communities have shared meals since the dawn of man. From the cave man’s hunt to the Roman symposium to the banquets of Marie Antionette, human beings have always gathered to share food and drink and company. Perhaps the image you conjure is one of china plates and starched linen tablecloths. In my twenties, there was sometimes plastic drinkware, and always an old curtain functioning as a tablecloth. We rotated which unlucky guest got the chair with a broken backrest. The food was experimental, the drinks even more so. In the presumption of our youth, we all thought we were inventing the next Manhattan when we sloshed together random selections off the rickety bar cart. Those recipes are forgotten, their aspirations for fame never realized. What is not forgotten is the hours of conversation or the friendships formed. Sitting or standing or balancing precariously on a broken chair, our dinner parties were a way to connect with each other when our lives felt like they were full of uncertainty. Entertaining was a way to ground ourselves, to connect to the simple pleasures of being together- eating and drinking and talking.

Though the value of bonding has never changed, the execution of the dinner party has elevated as we have grown up. Our evenings are defined by a bit more polish than they used to be. The chairs are all intact, the food is hot at the right times, the drinks come in glassware. However, higher standards come with longer hours prepping. An excellent paloma requires the cutting, squeezing, and cleaning of at least a few grapefruits. (Spoiler alert: our 100% Fresh Cold Pressed Grapefruit Juice doesn’t.) If dinner parties are all about connection, do we have to pick between sharing time and sharing something delicious?

We are constantly searching for solutions to provide excellent dining experiences to our loved ones without spending all evening hidden behind the scenes. Countless hours of mine have been spent listening to conversation and laughter flutter in from the dining room while I frantically chop vegetables or shake cocktails. Any seasoned host knows the danger that a rushed dinner prep may hold. I have had one too many nice blouses ruined by a cocktail shaker lid not properly fixed- the eggwhite was literally on my face, and one too many outfits ruined by an apron that stayed on until the guests were gone. The fantasy of an evening where the cocktails were flowing, and delicious, and with enough time to actually enjoy them together, was too attractive to ignore. If there was a solution, we were going to find it. Midway between hand squeezing your own juices and opting for the convenience of a too-sugary juice from concentrate, we landed on our hand squeezed, cold pressed juices. And then we took it a step further, and curated these juices into our Party Kit, the one-stop shop for any hostess that wants to have (and drink) the mostest. These kits include our Cold-Pressed Persian Lime Sour Mixer, Fresh Cold-Pressed Grapefruit Juice, Fresh Cold-Pressed Passion Fruit Juice, Fresh Cold-Pressed Three Citrus Margarita Mixer, Fresh Cold-Pressed Blood Orange Juice, and Fresh Cold Pressed Valencia Orange Juice. Drinks made with the best, and easiest, juice around also deserve to be beautiful- that’s why we included our Toasted Lime Wheels, Habanero Salt Gourmet Rimmer, and Lemon Gold Sugar Gourmet Rimmer. Some might call it the best of both worlds. We just call it the best.