New Years Eve with my family is never boring and nor is it a time to consider your caloric intake. Our twelve course meal starts around 6pm and a dish is served every half hour or so until midnight. And all that deliciousness isn’t even the fun part. The fun part is the theme.

This year’s theme was No Cutlery Allowed. Usually the theme applies to the food but not necessarily to the accompanying drinks. This year I decided to up my game. My cocktails would require no glassware.

My first cocktail was a glassless G&T. I made a tonic water concentrate and mixed it with cold gin, gelatin powder and a splash of lemon and lime juice. I scooped out halves of limes and set the gelatin in them. Once set I sliced each half into single serving wedges and served them up on a platter. Very grown up and civilized Jello shooters.

My next cocktail (and my favourite of the evening) was the One Bite Martinis. I searched high and low for the largest pitted olives I could find. I sliced the open end of the olive off and used it for the “base” of the olive cup. I carved out a larger cup in the olives and the hole in the bottom (from being pitted) was stuffed with blue cheese. The olive cups were filled with a vodka martini and garnished with pimento. An incredible pain in the ass to make but oh so worth the effort.

My last savoury cocktail of the evening was a Pickle Caesar. I found the thickest pickles I could. I trimmed off one end flat so they would stand and carved out the other end into a cup. I filled each pickle cup with a Caesar heavy on the Worcestershire and horseradish, and garnished with a thinly cut piece of celery.

For my dessert cocktail I wanted to make homemade marshmallow glasses but failed miserably. A couple of times. On the upside, the many batches of marshmallow experience made fantastic garnish for the eventual chocolate cup cocktails. These were made by dipping skinny balloons in melted chocolate and letting them harden. For the adults the cups were filled with a White Russian with a homemade marshmallow garnish a  drizzle of strawberry puree. The kids filled theirs with ice cream and the same garnish.

Happy New Year!