How to run a bar at a house party (and still enjoy it)

A bar at a party sounds easy until you are in it. Half an hour in there is a queue at the fridge, someone wants the cocktail you said you could make, and you have spent the evening pouring instead of talking to anyone. Most of that can be sorted before the first guest arrives.

Keep the drinks list short

The most common mistake is offering everything you own. A short list is quicker to serve, cheaper to stock and easier to choose from. For most parties this covers it:

• One or two beers. A lager, plus a cider or something darker.

• A red, a white and something with bubbles.

• Two mixed drinks you can pour fast, like a G&T or a rum and Coke.

• One cocktail at most, ideally one you can make by the jug before people arrive.

• Proper soft drinks. Not just a bottle of squash. Drivers notice.

For more on choosing the list and writing it up, see what to put on your home bar menu.

How much to buy

The usual rule is two drinks per guest in the first hour, then one an hour after that. Twenty people over four hours comes to about a hundred drinks. Split that by what your crowd actually drinks. Here is a starting point:

Buy beer in multipacks. Leftovers never go to waste, and running out is worse than having some left.

Ice: buy twice what you think

Allow at least half a kilo per guest just for drinks, and more again if you are chilling bottles in a bucket or the bath. Ice runs out before anything else, and nobody wants to be at the petrol station at nine o’clock.

Put the bar in the right place

Somewhere people can reach without blocking the kitchen or the back door. A corner of the kitchen works if there is room to stand. Otherwise a table in the room where people end up gathering.

• Keep the fridge or cool box next to you, not across the room.

• Line up the glasses in the order you use them.

• Have a bin, a cloth and a bottle opener within reach. You will need all three.

• Cut the lemons and limes before anyone arrives.

Stop being the person who takes the orders

The hard part of running a bar is not the pouring. It is remembering who asked for what. Someone in the garden wants a beer, someone on the sofa wants a gin with no ice, and by the time you have made one you have forgotten the other.

A few ways round it:

• Self-serve for the easy stuff. Beer and soft drinks in a cool box people help themselves from. You only make the mixed drinks.

• A menu on the wall. A printed list stops the ‘what have you got?’ conversation and steers people towards what you actually stocked.

• Let people order from their phones. With Orders Up, guests scan a code on the table, pick from your menu and say where they are sitting. The order lands on your phone and you work through them in turn.

Whichever you choose, the point is the same. You decide when you go back to the bar, instead of being called back every two minutes.

Look after the people who are not drinking

Give the soft drinks as much thought as the cocktail. A decent ginger beer, a jug of something with fruit in it and an alcohol-free beer go a long way. Keep water out all night, and food. Crisps count.

Questions people ask

Start your bar