The thought of making cocktails for your friends and family right from your own home is extremely glamorous but in reality, you could end up playing mixologist for the evening and not getting a chance to actually enjoy the company of your loved ones.

Cocktail expert Abi Clephane from Bruichladdich Distillery agrees. She says: ”“I love the theatre of shaking cocktails,

“But when you’ve got people arriving in waves, you want drinks that taste brilliant without needing to stand there making each one like you’re on a shift. Christmas should be fun for the host too.”

Plus, how many of us just have a cocktail shaker kicking about?

Clephane says her number one hack is to pre-dilute your cocktails, bottle them, and then freeze them.

She explains: “Make your cocktail exactly as you normally would, same ingredients, same ratios, and then just add water. For a stirred drink, add 20%. For a shaken drink, add 25%. That gives you the dilution you’d normally get from ice, but without having to shake or stir anything.

“Freeze the bottle and pour it straight into a glass. It comes out cold, smooth, and perfectly balanced.”

She adds that this one trick avoids the classic hosting nightmare: “There is never, ever enough ice at Christmas for the amount of cocktails people expect. This solves that immediately.

“Just make sure you’re using a sturdy bottle. The ones we use at Bruichladdich are 60% recycled glass and can handle the freezer, so you can batch everything days ahead and not stress about anything breaking.”

Clephane swears by frozen glassware because it improves everything without any effort at all: “A frozen glass just makes a drink so much more enjoyable. You don’t need fancy ice or special equipment.

“If you’ve got space to chill a few glasses before people arrive, that alone will make your drinks feel more intentional. You can use it for cocktails, wine, even beer – it improves every drink!”

Clearing up an old myth, Clephane says: “People always think boiled water will give you clear ice, but it genuinely doesn’t make a difference.

“If you actually want those really clear cubes, the only method that works is directional freezing. Get a small cool box, fill it with good-quality water, leave the lid off and put it in the freezer.

“It freezes from the top down, and that’s what creates proper clarity. Then you can cut it into cubes or use stretchy silicone moulds if you want to shape it.”

Can’t wait to impress my guests.