The Cocktail Party

Writing about the cocktail party we went to at Elle's college in Canberra reminded me that these days, a cocktail party rarely involves cocktails. It's usually some champagne, lovely wines, beers and sparkling water. 

Amazingly, (you'll get the irony shortly) I actually recall a real cocktail party when I was at college. How anyone thought an event offering more than a dozen different cocktails for 17 - 22 year-olds to work their way through was a good idea, is beyond me - even if it was the 1980s.

The common room was set up with different stations, each offering a different, extremely alcoholic concoction. These included but were not limited to; Grasshoppers, B-52s, Harvey Wall Bangers, Martinis, Long Island Iced Teas, Blue Lagoons, Fluffy Ducks and few with 'hilarious' names like Sex On The Beach and A Comfortable Screw.

Hydration wasn't such a big thing in the 80s. Why drink water when you could just keep drinking cocktails? Especially, if you were starting to feel a little dizzy, there was a very tasty light option - kahlua and milk. 

For most of us, we'd only indulged in these exotic mixtures on occasion and certainly not all at once. We were even issued with a check list - just to be sure we didn't miss any.

These days, a sense of responsibility usually means serving food at such events, often something like chicken sandwiches, mini burgers and other substantial finger food to slow the uptake of alcohol among an excitable crowd.  Back in the 80s, it was a couple of bowls of Burger Rings and some Twisties.

We had loads of drunken, raucous parties at college, but this would have to have been the fastest. It started at 8pm and was done and dusted by 10.30pm. There wasn't a conscious soul left as everyone had either passed out, vomited, become disorientated and lost in the gardens or successfully crawled off to bed.

Based on this, my only experience of a cocktail party with both scope and scale, perhaps it's just as well that most are beer and wine.