The Spirit World

I entertain quite often and one thing I try to do - both to give my guests a way to be part of the party and as a way to take a bit of the load off me - is set up the beverages in a way that makes it easy for everyone to handle their own requests. This can be as simple as making sure corkscrews and foil cutters are displayed for easy access when serving wine or can be more detailed by giving your guests hard liquor options, recipes and shakers, jiggers, swizzle sticks, garnishes, etc.

Yesterday morning I had a brunch and decided a fun thing to do would be to make a Bellini Bar. Now technically a Bellini is white peach puree and Prosecco. That’s it. However, it seems that today people loosely associate the term Bellini with just about any fruit and Prosecco combination. Now you know that here at The Spirit World we try to stick with traditional and authentic cocktail and drink recipes but every now and then even we let our hair down and relax the rules a bit!

The day before the party I made several fruit purees so they would be ready to go in the morning. These are super easy to make. At this time of year using frozen fruit is best but if you can find good, ripe fresh fruit I would use that instead.

Fruit Puree

1 pound of frozen fruit, such as strawberries, peaches or blueberries, defrosted
1/3 - 1/2 cup simple syrup
Water

Place the frozen fruit in a blender. Add some of the simple syrup and a splash of water. Blend until the mixture is very smooth. You will need to pause the blender now and then to taste, add a bit more simple syrup until the fruit has reached your desired level of sweetness. Once that has been reached add enough water to make the puree thin enough to pour.

Puree can be made a day or two ahead of time and held in the refrigerator.

I have a very powerful blender that chews any seeds up to nearly nothing. If your blender is not quite as strong, you may want to run the puree through a sieve to remove the larger seed pieces prior to storing or serving. Even the little strawberry and blueberry seeds can be quite annoying in a beverage.

On the day of your party, arrange the purees in little bowls, or even better, small pitchers. I wanted to show off the bright colors so I chose little clear bowls for this party. Tell your guests (or post instructions at the bar) to add one to two tablespoons of the puree to their glass and then carefully fill with Prosecco. Stir gently and there you go!

Guests can choose which flavors appeal to them and even mix purees to make their own custom blends. In addition to the purees you may want to offer other options such as orange juice (which, when mixed with sparkling wine actually makes a Mimosa) or fruit nectars such as Guava or Mango. The addition of the fruit juices also adds a non-alcoholic option for your guests.

You really can’t go wrong. The idea is to make this an interactive and fun “task” for your guests and add some beauty to the party through use of the jewel-tone purees.