Aperitif time!

How to organise a perfect aperitif in the garden

In summer, having a house with a garden is a real plus; you can have enjoyable lunches and aperitifs surrounded by greenery and in total relaxation. A cool aperitif is what you need late in the afternoon after work or during the weekend to help you relax. Here’s how to organise a delicious happy hour to make you evenings with friends really fun.

Perfect hospitality

The setting for an outdoor aperitif must have one or more tables where the guests can put down their drinks and finger food, as well as sofas, chairs and small tables to enable guests to sit down and eat in comfort. If the garden permits, you could also use coloured covers, cushions and poufs to allow your guests to relax. A buffet is a must: in this way the aperitif will be informal, giving everybody the possibility of choosing which nibbles to try and, most of all, will allow the guests to freely move around. Before the event, therefore, make a careful purchase of strictly sustainable paper glasses, cutlery and plates.

Ideas for a special aperitif

You can make use of some original and trendy aperitif ideas to make your outdoor party an event to remember. For example, you can decide on a theme for your party, with lots of colourful gadgets to distribute among the guests. For a Hawaiian aperitif, make flower necklaces and crowns, as well as grass skirts. With pop music and lots of coloured cocktails, a great time is guaranteed! Alternatively, a hippy-style event will be characterized by coloured wigs, bandanas and enormous sunglasses, with lots of 1960s music. It’s also possible to play with colours: white is a big classic, but summer is the ideal time to dare with bright shades. Or even a lights party at sunset with hundreds of lights and candles for an evening with a unique atmosphere.

The perfect menu

A good standing aperitif must be tasty but also practical. That means it should be conceived for easy consumption. A summer party requires particular stratagems, for example, the preparation of fresh and tasty nibbles. Homemade fruit skewers and popsicles, fresh fruit accompanied by some tasty sauces, fresh cheeses, coloured salads and vegetable pies are excellent solutions. To accompany, you can offer fresh white wines, preferably sparkling … champagne is always a safe bet!

Atmospheric lights

The final touch is the lighting, which has the task of making the atmosphere relaxed and convivial. Create the right atmosphere using points of light scattered around the area. Use candles and lanterns displayed on furniture tops, but keep them away from food and drinks, in order to avoid accidents. A really charming idea is to use dark glass bottles with strings of battery-powered lights to insert inside: they will help make the atmosphere unique! The music is also an important element not to be underestimated: welcome your friends with pleasant and cheerful music that serves as a background for conversation and toasts.

Elegant and natural exteriors

Finishes for the outdoors play a fundamental role in creating pleasant and unforgettable settings. Fioranese offers numerous particular and extremely sophisticated collections that blend in perfectly with the natural context, enhancing our outdoor spaces to the maximum. Mashup Dolomia, for example, is ideal for these applications. The collection is a stone-effect porcelain stoneware that draws inspiration from a Limestone from the wonderful Italian Dolomites and is useable both for indoors and outdoors. The material is offered in an extremely contemporary palette of four neutral colours, ranging from white sand to darker grey shades. The collection is completed with a nature-inspired pattern, Dehor, which adds a refined decorative touch to settings and an original coarse grain surface finish similar to split stone. Thanks, in fact, to these simple and modern characteristics and the introduction of the new 90×90 format with 2cm thickness for the outdoors, it will be possible to use furnishings which are also of different styles, in order to create extreme continuity between indoor and outdoor contexts, giving light and a new dimension to our outdoors.