Were wading into the deep waters of the holiday season now.

It saves time, mess, and stress.

Many cocktail recipes are ratios, or they have measurements that are easily multiplied.

Once its party time, your theme drink simply needs its final preparation.

Often that step is only as complicated as pouring it over ice.

Be sure to let your guests know where the batch is so they can help themselves.

This allows them to be more independent and embrace the make yourself at home holiday vibe.

These drinks have little juice or non-alcoholic components which means theyll store well without losing flavor.

Here’s a ratio for properlydiluting your bottled martini.

Carefully consider drinks that are largely sparkling wine, soda, or tonic (basically anything bubbly).

Theyre going to lose all of their festive fizz while sitting in the fridge.

That doesnt mean you cant have a sparkling topper.

Save the egg-white-dependent, cream-foamed, and muddled drinks and make those to-order.

These drinks look and taste best right after being prepared.

How much should you batch?

I very proudly made a large batched cocktail once.

Two hours into the festivities it had clean run out.

I had grossly underestimated how much to batch.

In times like these, its better to do some math.

Obviously, if you know two friends will only drink wine then you might subtract those servings.

If you have 10 people likely to partake, youll need 40 servings of the batch.

Use the number of servings to help you calculate the amount you need for each component.

This will help you shop for ingredients.

If your recipe requires two ounces of gin per serving, youll need 80 ounces of gin.

Most liquor bottles are in milliliters, so youll need to do some quick internet converting from ounces.

(No one said batching was cheap.

Use your ounce calculation from earlier to help you decide how many bottles you need.

Longer life means you’re free to batch one day or even a week ahead of time.

The juices wont go bad, but they can lose some of their flavor.

They wont freeze in a conventional home freezer, and at most they could become slushy.

(Here is an ABV calculatorfor cocktails, which can be handy for multiple reasons.)

Drinks with dairy ingredients, like milk or cream, should be stored in the fridge just in case.

If those become slushy, the texture of the dairy ingredient might change after thawing.

Maybe all you have to do is top off the batched mix with Champagne.

Grab your own, and bask in the warm glow of the holiday season.