Ladies & gentlemen, welcome to the virtual home of the Central Park Cocktail Club, a salon dedicated to cocktails.

Meetings
Central Park Cocktail Club will meet monthly at the Central Park Social Club, during the cocktail hour (naturally), with the option of moving elsewhere if someone wishes to play host or hostess down the line.

Rationale
It would be easy enough to get together once a month simply to imbibe. But I think most of us here do that a few times a week, anyway. Au contraire, Cocktail Club should be conversational, educational and enlightening, with the aim of refining our tastes, expanding our vocabulary and broadening the horizons of our alcoholic-feeling tastebuds. We can order cheap drinks made from bad ingredients at dive bars any night of the week. But once a month, we should treat ourselves to finer spirits, and take the time to appreciate them.

Theme
We tend to drink cocktails seasonally (e.g. lighter liquors in the warmer months, heavier ones in the colder months) which may dictate some ingredients and their availability, but otherwise anything goes. We may eventually opt to vote on the following month’s theme at the prior month’s meeting. Maybe there are calendar holidays that call for specific cocktails. Let’s keep this loose.

Logistics
For his/her given month, each host/hostess will purchase the ingredients and alcohol and present at least one round of cocktails for the group. Food will be provided by those members not paying dues that month, which leads us to…

Dues
As we all know, alcoholic ingredients are not cheap. Thus Cocktail Club will rely on nominal dues, to be paid to the host(s) monthly at each meeting you attend. Dues are $5-$10 and can be paid either monetarily or in consumable currency, e.g., hors d’oeuvres brought to share. Depending on how many members are at a given meeting and how expensive the theme cocktail is, dues may vary. (By comparison, most monthly wine clubs require its members to purchase a $10-$20 bottle of wine per month.) Let’s keep Cocktail Club affordable without skimping on the quality of our drinks.

In spirits,
Lauren