New Year’s Eve is amateur night if you’re roaming the streets or going to bars/clubs. You spend a ton of money, the event is super crowded and noisy, and the celebration is not always worth all the humbug. Instead of going out, for the past five New Year’s Eves, we’ve had a themed dinner party at our house with friends and family. The dinner party always has some sort of tasting theme, followed by a feast, fireworks, and games.
Here’s How We’re Celebrating New Year’s Eve With Mustard, Beer, & Pretzels.
Tasting Theme: Mustard & Beer pairing
I went to a foodie festival with a mustard bar. It was so cool. We tasted the mustards using a pretzel stick in order of sweetest mustard to Dijon. This New Year’s Eve, I’m pairing 6 different mustards with 6 beers and making homemade soft pretzel bites to use as dipping vessels.
Thank you to Maria & Josh from Two Peas & Their Pod for providing us with a fantastic Homemade Soft Pretzel Bite recipe. (They took the photo, too). Their blog is one of my favorites! You must check it out.
Main Theme: German Feast
Since mustard and beer seems so German, we decided to continue the main feast with a German theme. We’re having:
Grilled Sausages
Big Green Salad with a Dijon Balsamic Vinaigrette (I needed some extra color in there so I added in a salad)
Fireworks:
We watch the fireworks from our rooftop deck and shoot off fireworks from our driveway.
Game: Cards Against Humanity
This game is so much fun. It can get dirty. But it’s funny. Every year someone brings a new game and we play.
How you can have a successful tasting party: If tasting alcohol, the easy tip is to buy tiny airline bottles of the liqueur because everyone literally takes a tiny sip. You can do a blind taste-test where you rate the booze and then discover what brand you drank. You can drink the tiny sips out of shot glasses. There are so many options. Here are some ideas of themes we’ve had in the past:
- Tequila tasting
- Rum tasting
- Whiskey tasting
- Vodka tasting
Want some more themes? Check out this past blog: Five Fabulous New Year’s Eve Party Theme Menus
Comment below and let me know how you are going to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
Happy New Year!
Sarah Koszyk, MA, RDN