In the PR-world, businesses can either spend a fortune to try and reach every customer personally or use swank private parties to capture the fickle attention of people in the media world.

Yesterday, I found myself at one of the latter (thanks Jaime), hosted by Bombay Sapphire. The venerable gin brand flew in their mixologist Merlin Griffith to teach us a thing or two about home entertaining.

Entertaining for Dummies

“Home entertainment has become one of this year’s hottest trends,” Merlin told us. “How many have entertained at their homes in the last while?”

Only a few hands went up. Tough crowd.

But in case the recession forces parties back into homes, Merlin provided some idiot-proof cocktail recipes.

Perhaps from experience, some of us might know that guests can’t simply be funnelled booze on empty stomachs. Here Sebastien Centner demonstrates the art of Charcuterie. I didn’t let him know that I don’t have a single item of food in my fridge.

The residence

Where better to do home entertaining than in Rosedale? The event took place in Ted Rogers Sr.’s former house, now a private heritage property. (He’s the guy who created CFRB and the batteryless radio. He also created Ted Rogers Jr., the recently deceased head of Rogers.)

Here’s his backyard:

No word about whether Ted ever took a dip in the pool.

The gift bag

And the reward for being forced to consume so much gin? More gin:

Let me know if you want to test drive a Bombay Collins.

The obligatory slideshow