Class Up Your Brunch Cocktails With Mini Sandwich Garnishes

As a meal that counts for breakfast and lunch, brunch lives up to its decadent and extravagant reputation. Brunch parties are gaining popularity as informal and inexpensive takes on dinner parties, with a corresponding list of cocktails to boot.

Brunch cocktail garnishes alone are substantial enough to constitute a meal in some cases. Bloody Marys with skewers of cold-boiled shrimp, candied bacon, and pickled vegetables are the tip of the iceberg. Mini sandwich garnishes will bring your brunch cocktails to new and delicious heights.

Coiled fruit peels and delicately dusted rims suit elegant, understated cocktails, but mini-sandwiches live up to the fun and opulence of a boozy brunch. They encompass a boundless variety of ingredients, flavors, and textures to complement any combination of spirit and mixer.

Furthermore, these extravagant garnishes are easy to mass produce by simply dividing regular sandwiches into bite-sized portions. You could even use cookie cutters to create fun shapes for themed brunches. 

Classic brunch cocktails run the gamut of flavors, textures, and alcohol content. Just as fine-dining restaurants pair wine with food to mutually enhance their underlying flavors, you should pick sandwich garnishes according to how well they complement the cocktail in question.

If you choose a simple yet classy brunch cocktail like a mimosa or bellini, the dry bubbly wine and fruit juice mix would pair well with savory sandwich fillings like egg, cheese, and bacon on buttery bread like brioche or mini-croissants. A screwdriver's overwhelming orange flavor would pair well with a rich, savory mini-smashed avocado toast or egg salad sandwich.

A coffee cocktail like an Irish coffee or espresso martini has a bitter-sweet, creamy flavor profile that pairs well with sweet foods. So, you could make mini-Monte Cristo sandwiches with gruyere, jam, and powdered sugar-dusted bread or Japanese fruit and cream sandwiches.

Spicy brunch cocktails like Bloody Marys and micheladas pair well with briny seafood snacks, as well as umami-rich proteins. Some tasty sandwich pairings include fried shrimp and remoulade sliders, pimento cheese sandwiches, or a BLT.

You could draw inspiration from a brunch drink's cultural background. For example, a zesty Mexican brunch cocktail like a margarita would pair wonderfully with spicy mini Mexican sandwiches, for example, chorizo and potato pambazos.