Party went well, and I did indeed end up making a fair number of cocktails (including fancy drinks with raw egg whites and absinthe mists!), but I think the star was the mulled cider. Super easy to make, serves dozens of people and it's delicious (recipe courtesy of Imbibe magazine).
1 gallon unfiltered unsweetened apple cider (we used Trader Joe's Honeycrisp cider)
750 ml rye whiskey
750 ml sweet vermouth
1/2 cup sugar
5 whole cloves
3 whole cinnamon sticks
10 dashes Angostura bitters
Dump everything in a large pot or crockpot, give it a stir, set it on low heat and let it warm for an hour or two before serving (and you can keep it on low heat throughout the party). It's the easiest thing in the world, but it's just fantastic. You can garnish with a thin strip of orange peel pierced by a cinnamon stick, but we gave up on that pretty quick; orange peels are surprisingly hard to pierce with a cinnamon stick.
