Welcome Drinks for Guests: Three Recipes to Serve

Three welcome drinks we serve at events across India, all non-alcoholic and all built to be made ahead: butterfly pea flower lemonade, peach orange yuzu fizz, and sparkling rose lemonade with cucumber ribbons. All three are poured ahead and hold, so they can wait on a table by the entrance instead of being built while your guests are walking in.

The welcome drink is the first thing a guest holds and the last thing most hosts think about.

A good one gives them something to do with their hands and something to say about it.

All three are made ahead and hold. Pour them shortly before the first guest is due and set them out on a table near the entrance, and people pick one up on the way in. Whoever is helping you at home can carry a tray of them.

1. Butterfly Pea Flower Lemonade - Floral. Bright violet.

This is the one people photograph before they drink it.

Butterfly pea flower gives a deep violet that shifts toward pink as the lemon hits it, so the colour changes in the glass while the guest is holding it. That is the whole point of it, and it rests entirely on the concentrate being fresh.

Underneath the colour it is a properly balanced lemonade: floral, gently sweet, and light enough to drink in the sun.

• Butterfly pea flower tea concentrate, 15 ml
• Lemon juice, 10 ml
• Sugar syrup, 10 ml
• Sparkling soda, to top
• Ice cubes or crushed ice

1. Fill your shaker with ice cubes or crushed ice.
2. Add the butterfly pea concentrate, lemon juice and sugar syrup.
3. Shake well until chilled.
4. Pour into the glass.
5. Top with sparkling soda and more ice.
6. Garnish with a butterfly pea flower.

Use fresh concentrate for the colour. An older batch goes muddy rather than violet, and the colour is most of the point.

2. Peach Orange Yuzu Fizz - Citrus. Aromatic.

The one that disappears fastest.

Peach and orange are familiar enough that nobody hesitates, and the yuzu is what stops it tasting like juice. Ten millilitres is enough to lift the whole glass without anyone being able to name what it is.

It is the one that suits the widest room, which is exactly why we reach for it at corporate events.

• Peach syrup or peach purée, 15 ml
• Fresh orange juice, 30 ml
• Yuzu juice, 10 ml
• Sugar syrup, 10 ml, depending on how sweet the peach syrup is
• Sparkling water, 80 to 100 ml
• Orange slice, and a peach slice or edible flower, to garnish

1. Fill a shaker with ice.
2. Add the peach syrup, orange juice, yuzu juice and sugar syrup.
3. Shake well until chilled.
4. Fill the serving glass with fresh ice.
5. Strain the shaken mixture into the glass.
6. Top slowly with sparkling water, then give it one gentle stir.
7. Garnish with an orange slice and a peach slice or edible flower.

Fresh orange juice, not carton. It is the difference between bright and flat, and it is the one substitution guests notice.

3. Sparkling Rose Lemonade - Floral. Cucumber ribbons.

The most elegant of the three, and the least sweet.

Cucumber ribbons curled inside the glass do the work here. Cut them as thin as the peeler will allow, so they curl against the glass rather than sit flat against it. That is what turns a lemonade into something that looks considered.

Rose sparkling water carries the floral note, so the drink stays light rather than perfumed.

• Fresh lemon juice, 15 ml
• Sugar syrup, 10 ml
• Rose sparkling water, 100 to 120 ml
• Cucumber ribbons, 3 to 4
• Thin lemon slices, and a rose petal or edible flower, to garnish

1. Using a vegetable peeler, make long, thin cucumber ribbons.
2. Gently curl two or three ribbons and place them inside the glass, letting them hug the sides.
3. Fill the glass generously with ice.
4. Add the lemon juice and sugar syrup.
5. Top slowly with rose sparkling water.
6. Give it one gentle stir, without losing the fizz.
7. Finish with a fresh cucumber ribbon and a thin lemon slice.

Choose a rose water with a subtle profile. A strong one overpowers the lemon and cucumber, and the drink stops being refreshing.

What actually matters at scale

A few of these is a pleasure to make. Two hundred guests served as they arrive is a discipline.

Make them ahead. All three are built to hold, so pour them shortly before the first guest is due rather than working through a queue once the room starts filling.

Set them out rather than serving to order. A table near the entrance with the glasses already poured is a calmer arrival than a bar with a line at it, and the room fills with people already holding something.

Prepare garnishes as a batch. Cucumber ribbons and citrus wheels can be cut an hour ahead and held in cold water. Cutting them to order is what creates the queue.

Pro tip

Chill the glassware before making the drink.

The three at a glance

Beyond these three

A welcome drink is the smallest part of an event menu and the first thing anybody judges it by.

When we design beverage programmes for weddings, launches and private dinners across Delhi NCR, the welcome drink is chosen last, once we know what the room is and what follows it. A drink that works at a four o’clock mehendi is the wrong drink for a nine o’clock reception.

We work from our kitchen and experience centre in Noida, Sector 61, and every menu is built for the specific event rather than pulled off a list.

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