Signature cocktails are nothing new at weddings, but gone are the days of brides and grooms picking their favorite classic tipples. Now, couples are opting for entire custom bar programs, which tells their love story through unique mixed drinks, molecular gastronomy, craft beers, mocktails and even new inventions, like the SipMi activations.
“Fifteen years ago, if there was a cocktail served at an event, it was a mojito or a spicy margarita,” said Talmadge Lowe, the founder of Pharmacie, a specialty bar and cocktail company, also in Los Angeles. “That was the extent of the creativity. Now, cocktails are a must. They have grown from the familiar and classic to the custom and creative.”
Mr. Lowe started Pharmacie a decade ago after repeatedly crafting drinks for friends’ dinner parties and realizing a demand for high-end mixology at private events. He now creates custom beverages for 90 percent of the events he does. The essence of the demand, he says, is that a specialty beverage elevates the experience. A drink is sensual and ignites responses from sight and smell to taste. It is often remembered long after the event.
Couples use cocktails as a vehicle to deliver a message about their relationship, incorporating, say, a margarita-inspired drink to denote their first date a local taco restaurant or an ingredient discovered by the couple on a memorable trip. For one Los Angeles couple, Mr. Lowe suggested employing their mutual adoration of music and the groom’s career as a musician as inspiration for their cocktails. The bride, Melanie Ayer, recalled that many of their best memories were on the road as now-husband Kelcey Ayer toured. Since he proposed the day after a Radiohead concert in New York, the couple and Mr. Lowe fashioned a dark Bourbon cocktail with Dubonnet Rouge, Benedictine, and Angostura Bitters to evoke the experience. “It reminded us of the moody, romantic vibes of that entire weekend,” Ms. Ayer said of the drink, which they dubbed “Everything in Its Right Place” after the rock band’s song.
One of Mr. Lowe’s other couples requested bourbon for the groom; and for the bride, yuzu, a citrus fruit often found in Asian cuisine. The bride, Jackie Noh Davis, says she wanted it featured in a drink but didn’t have the basis of anything classic to work from.
