When deciding on an area to set up your drink station, you want to ensure you will have enough room for all your bar accoutrements. A medium size table or bar cart for small places or a buffet or sideboard counter work great. If you don’t have anything like that in your home, there are plenty of places that let you rent different sized tables to fit your needs at a reasonable price. You want to also make sure the location is easy to access and does not cause traffic stalls for your guests.

To begin setting up your bar area, start with the spirits. They don’t typically need to be chilled you can plan to set these out and organize them, well in advance.  Consider making batch cocktails or pre-bottled items-if you don’t have time to serve custom drinks, guests can self-serve and just pour over ice. Don’t forget obvious staples such as wine, beer, and bubbly.

Be prepared with an assortment of glasses for different types of drinks and have twice as many glasses on hand as guests

To protect your floor and table it’s a good idea to use a galvanized metal tray to contain the bottles. This will prevent any major spillage from going everywhere, making for easy clean up. This galvanized serving tray can also be used to serve drinks and is large enough to hold several easily.

Get an ice bucket so no one is coming into your cooking or prep space. Next, you will also want to have a galvanized ice bucket, that is sealed to prevent any water leakage. Behrens galvanized beverage buckets are a perfect solution and come in a variety of sizes. These galvanized metal buckets come in shiny steel or hot dipped steel finish to compliment your holiday décor.

Fill a bucket with ice, grab a scoop and place it in an easy to reach location on your table bar or on your tray from above. Best of all, these versatile metal pails and buckets can be used later, on the boat or at the beach to tote cold beer and soft drinks.

Quality ice and garnishes are important for mixed drinks so have plenty separated and kept cold in buckets and nested on trays. Consider try some fun shapes and make ahead with ice trays in the shape of spheres, squares, stars and more.

Gather the Galvanized Tubs.

Once you have everything that goes on your galvanized tray set up, you can begin to fill your metal tub with a layer of ice. This will keep your beer chilled from the bottom. Arrange your beer can and bottles on your layer of ice. Pour another layer of ice into your galvanized beer tub to cover slightly less than the neck of the bottle or top of can. This will keep your beer properly chilled throughout your party.

Be sure to make drink accommodations for any kids or those guests choosing to pass up a cocktail. Keep non-alcoholic drinks available throughout the night. Check back frequently and replenish your galvanized metal tub, as needed.  You will also want to prepare another galvanized beverage tub for non-alcoholic drinks, like soda and juice. These can also be used as mixers with your selection of spirits.

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Afterwards, you can prepare your galvanized wine bucket. White wine is usually housed in the fridge until it’s ready to be served. You’ll still want to do this, but once you open a bottle, you’ll want a place to keep it to prevent it from getting warm while everyone is socializing.

Place enough ice to fill half of the metal bucket. You want to leave enough room to be able to insert the wine bottle into the ice, move it around until the ice settles around the bottle. You can likely get two bottles into one galvanized wine chiller bucket and you can change the bottles as they are emptied.

A good rule of thumb is to strategically choose a window or two across the room to keep cracked open. This will allow fresh air to flow through the space and keep everyone comfortable.

Holidays can be stressful and if you’re the one hosting, it can be even more stressful. It doesn’t have to be, though. By using the quick guide to estimating drinks for a party and ensuring you have the right tools, like tubs, trays, and buckets, you can make it easier on yourself. Your guests will have a wonderful time and marvel at how effortless you made it all look!

Love the aged-galvanized beverage tub look? Want to see more options? Check out Behrens full line of Galvanized Steel Entertaining metalware.