Thanks all.
In the end, the decision was made for us. All 3 of our kids made other plans. The eldest went to a school play, the prospective bartender played with the HS pep band at a b-ball game, and the youngest had a job of her own babysitting down the block.
I pretty much put away folks coats as they arrived, and made everyone their first drink. For most of the party, I stayed pretty much in the area of the bar most of the time. Kept one basin of the kitchen sink filled with ice, beer, soda, etc. Cut up limes, lemon peel, stocked ice, wiped the counter, rinsed out the shakers.
Most folks were happy to mix their own. I had a sheet with the recipes for chocolate martinis and cosmos posted right over the booze. Probably should have included basic martinis, and other gin and vodka drinks as well.
The cosmos were by far the most popular.
The most frustrating thing - tho not unexpected - was how many folks hung out in the kitchen. Our kitchen is pretty small. The bottom floor of our house makes a loop, from entry way into living room, into dining room, to kitchen, to family room, back to entry way. The food was all in the dining room, and the bar was set up in the kitchen. At times there would be as many as 20 people standing around in the kitchen, while there was not a single person in our very comfortable family room right on the other side of the wall.
So I figured if people wanted to jam into the kitchen, they could very well mix their own drinks. I, on the other hand, made myself comfortable in the family room for the most part, making strafing runs into the kitchen to refill my own glass, straighten up, and see if anything needed to be done.
Since this was a bigger party than we usually host, we looked to several sources to see how much food and drink to provide. The published sources all had us grossly overestimate the amounts. Good thing we bought and made only stuff that we would like to have leftover. Meatball anyone?
From all reports, it seems as tho our guests enjoyed themselves. Even so, I suspect it will be some time before we attempt any entertaining on that scale again.
Our kids all sampled our chocolate martinis and cosmos while we were trying out recipes, as well as some Sam Adams chocolate bock the night of the party. And all 3 claimed to find them undrinkable. So our enjoyment of alcohol doesn’t seem to be creating another generation of boozehounds as of yet.
No one seemed to seriously overindulge. Tho a couple of folk were clearly feeling no pain. They all were with pretty sober drivers, tho.
As one woman was giggling and mixing up another round, I reminded her that even tho it tasted good, she was essentially drinking straight booze. She professed that she had already had 2 and felt absolutely fine. No shit! Her husband wasn’t drinking so I merely suggested she might want to consider occasionally interspersing with somethin N/A, and left it at that. Wonder how fine she felt the next morning!
Another woman asked me to mix her something with gin, so she could try gin. Later on she complimented me on my “divine” concoction, asking me what I called it. I told her it was an obscure drink I liked to call a “gin and tonic.”