Pajama Polar Palooza Preperations

     Now that I am over a month removed from Thanksgiving 2.6 and we're past New Year's Eve I can direct the event portion of my brain towards the upcoming Polar Palooza. This year's event has a pajama/sleepover theme. I get the privilege of pretending I am Sam Malone (not Woody, please) from Cheers one more time. I wonder who will be the Cliff or Norm of this years gathering. To keep the bar-tending interesting for me, I have decided to update the drink menu. Also, I am debating between a making a few adjustments towards my area behind the bar. Because I only have to focus on one small portion of this event I can really concentrate on improving my skills and improving the menu over the next month.

     Last year I had a 6 page menu available. Each page was dedicated to one broad style of drink. (Classic, Dessert, Modern, Sexy, Tropical and the Dueling Shot Menu) While talking to the host he pointed out that I had more drink choices than there were actual guests at the event. I've decided that I am going to keep the categories from last year, but decrease the number of drinks per page from 12 down to around 8. Quinton, the host, suggested I lower it even further possibly down to 5 or 6. I considered this for a long time, but when I started to edit the menus I just couldn't bring myself to remove that many drinks. I don't feel that I'm attached to any of them, but I do remember people enjoying the drinks that I'm keeping. I didn't keep track of what people ordered last time, so I am going from memory in what to remove. The only problem is that I know I am probably going to eliminate a couple of last year's favorites. Since the menu pages will change I will also have to update the "big board". I have an idea on how to utilize the new empty space on the board. I'm going to keep a marker by the board and have the guests put a mark next to the drink they ordered. I'm hoping this will encourage people to try a particularly popular drink or to try one that no one has been brave enough to taste. Marking what drink they have ordered will also let me trim next year's menu too. I think a reduced number of drinks on the menu and a way to keep track of what everyone is drinking will keep it running smoothly and keep it fun for me.

     After I started the reduction of cocktail options I had a request from the host  to create a new page of drinks specifically for the Palooza. I did a bit of research and found that there are very few cocktails named for sleeping/sleepover/pajama parties. This caught me by surprise because I would have thought this was an easy topic to create drinks about. I found a few cocktails that I thought would be good, and tweaked them a bit to create 4 wholly new cocktails. The 5th choice is one I created 2 years ago using a cereal infused milk and vodka. The drinks are: the Pillow Fight, Snowball to the Face, Teletubbie, Power Ranger and the Cap'n Crunch Shooter. These 5 drinks are brand new and unique as far as I know. The nice thing about having to create a new page of the menu was that the menu will still be reduced by around 1/3. It goes from 60 drinks to the low 40's not including the shots. If nothing else this will hopefully make the choices a bit easier for the guests.

     The Dueling Shots game menu gets a fairly large overhaul. I wanted the shot game to have a more even distribution of tasty shots to adventurous/exciting/awful shots. It is a game after all and without consequences what kind of game would it be? I have added the Battery Acid shot, Bear Droppings, Nuclear Fallout and The Facial. 3 of these are of the adventurous variety.The Dueling Shots game still requires 13 shots and will work the same as last year. To refresh everyone's memories, you play Duel Shots by first having the 2 people "pop" the 12 sided die. The high roller then gets to chooses between the 2 numbers rolled, then both players drink that shot. If it is a tie then the duelers get to drink the #13 shot. Overall, the game was enjoyed last year, and I don't think there will be a drop off. 

     Last year I wanted to add a bit of extra fanciness to the presentation by bringing some glassware to replace the plastic cups. I was saddened to find that this was an idea that didn't really work because of the limitations of the space and there is no way to add a sink to the cabana area. I enjoyed the fancy level that the glass brought, but I had an issue with getting the glasses cleaned quickly enough. I would need a whole new system to clean the glasses quickly enough to allow me to use them. I have been unable to come up with system that lets me rinse, wash and then dry them easily. I don't exactly have an unlimited amount of room, which also hinders this idea. These factors have helped me decide that I will not attempt this again.This time around I am going to get some nice clear plastic cups in a couple of different shapes. Party City has great prices on their clear plasticware and it happens to be on my way home from work. However, I will be bringing a handful of "Old Fashioned" glasses because I have a couple flaming drinks on the menus. I will only have a few actual glasses to deal with so I know the upkeep will be fairly simple.

     It will be a fun month. I have to finish up the menus and once that's done I get to test taste a few new drinks that I found. I'm also going to test out my counting ability when making cocktails. I'm going to see if I can remove the measuring devices and do it by eye. If I learn this skill I should increase my serving speed by 1/3 a least. This should be fun. .

For a sneak preview of the menu, here is the new Polar Palooza list of drinks created specifically for the gathering.