Wholesale Bottled Cocktails: A Planner’s Guide to Ordering for an Event
A wedding date, a corporate function, a private party, whatever it is, you’re working against a fixed guest count and a fixed day. Get the drinks quantity wrong in either direction and it’s your name attached to it, not just the client’s.
Finding the right supplier for wholesale bottled cocktails should take some of that pressure off. Here’s what matters when you’re ordering for a single event rather than restocking an ongoing venue.
How Many Bottles Do You Need for an Event?
This is the part most planners get wrong by applying one blanket rule to every event. Corporate functions and evening weddings drink at genuinely different rates, and treating them the same either leaves you short or leaves you explaining a pile of unused stock to a client.
Part of that comes down to who’s in the room. Corporate crowds are often heading back to the office or driving home afterward, so consumption stays lighter by nature. Evening weddings run for hours with nowhere to be after, and the pace picks up as the night goes on.
A rough guide worth working from: corporate events, lunches, and shorter receptions tend to run around 2 to 3 drinks per guest. Evening weddings and galas tend to run closer to 5 to 6.
Here’s how that translates into bottles, using a standard 700ml bottle that serves roughly 7 (exact serving counts can vary slightly by cocktail, so it’s worth confirming the figure for whichever drinks you’re ordering):
| Event type | Drinks per guest | For 50 guests | Bottles needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate lunch or short reception | 2-3 | 100-150 | 14-21 |
| Evening wedding or gala | 5-6 | 250-300 | 36-43 |
Adjust up or down depending on how long the event runs and whether cocktails are the main drink on offer or one option among several.
Is It Better to Run Dry or Overorder?
Neither, obviously, but they don’t cost you the same way. Running dry mid-event is the one that gets remembered, guests notice immediately, and it reads as under-planned no matter how well everything else went. Overordering is quieter but comes with its own conversation, explaining to a client why there’s a stack of unused bottles left over and why that money didn’t need to be spent.
Worth knowing before you order: offering guests more variety usually means more leftover stock, not less, since demand spreads thinner across more options rather than concentrating on one or two crowd-pleasers. That’s a genuine trade-off between guest choice and tighter stock management, not something a supplier can solve for you. It’s worth deciding upfront which one matters more for this specific event.
When Should You Place the Order?
Timing the order itself is worth planning for separately from the quantity math.
The general guidance across event planning is to order wholesale bottled cocktails somewhere between one and two months before the date, not right at the start of planning, and not the week before either.
That window exists for a practical reason. Order too early and you’re locking in a quantity based on a guest list that hasn’t been finalised yet, invites are still going out, RSVPs are still coming in, and the number can shift meaningfully in either direction.
Order too late and you’re relying on a supplier being able to turn around a bulk order with almost no notice, which isn’t a guarantee every supplier can make, especially during a busy wedding season when several other events are competing for the same delivery slots.
One to two months out tends to hit the sweet spot: your guest count is close enough to final to order against with confidence, and there’s still enough runway for a supplier to commit properly to your delivery date rather than treating it as a rush job.
What to Ask a Wholesale Bottled Cocktails Supplier Before You Book
A few things worth confirming before committing to any wholesale order for an event, especially if you haven’t used the supplier before:
- Do they take one-off event orders, or is their wholesale setup built only for ongoing trade accounts?
- Can they commit to a delivery date, not just a delivery window?
- What happens if the guest count changes closer to the date?
- Is the range broad enough to cover different guest preferences without you having to order from multiple suppliers?
At The Remarkable Cocktail Company, we work with event planners and corporate organisers across Ireland, so a one-off order for a wedding or private party isn’t an unusual ask for us.
Orders are built around your event date, with delivery timed to arrive on time and in perfect condition, which matters more for a single fixed date than it does for a venue that can absorb a slightly late restock.
Get in touch with us now and let’s work out what your event needs.
Quality Matters as Much as Quantity
Getting the logistics right doesn’t count for much if the cocktails themselves fall flat. Every bottle from The Remarkable Cocktail Company is handcrafted by expert mixologists, so the taste is consistent from the first pour to the last, no guesswork about whether it’ll land well with guests.
The range covers both timeless classics and crowd-pleasers, so you’re not stuck offering one style of drink to a guest list with different tastes.
Finding a Supplier Worth Booking Again
When you’re choosing a supplier for wholesale bottled cocktails, order quantity, order timing, and drink quality solve three different problems, and it’s worth treating them that way rather than assuming a supplier fixes all three at once.
The ratio guide above gets you close to the right quantity for your specific event type, and ordering one to two months out gives both you and the supplier enough room to get the delivery right.
The Remarkable Cocktail Company handles the part that’s harder to guarantee yourself: making sure what arrives is consistently good and turns up on the day you need it. Get that right once, and it’s less to figure out from scratch the next time a client hands you a date.
One more thing worth knowing if branding matters for the event: there’s also an option to work with us on custom labels or a signature drink built around the occasion, worth asking about if it’s relevant, though not something every event needs.
Get in touch with us now and let’s work out what your event needs.