For 4th of July weekend this year I was supposed to be with my two best girlfriends in Disney World, for our every other year girls trip. Of course this did not happen due to the current situation, and it was definitely a bummer. We had some really cool things planned (especially seeing the 4th of July fireworks!) and I love spending time there with both of them. We decided to spend the day having a socially distanced outside hangout, and that’s when I come up with the idea: Epcot in your backyard.
I wanted to find a way to bring at least a little Disney magic to our get-together, and one of the best ways I’ve been doing that recently is through drinks and food. So I worked together with my friend and we planned a pretty epic menu: at least one food and drink item from each of the 11 countries in Epcot.
We tried to keep it as simple as you can when one is planning that much food and drink – the only “decor” was just the table set up, where I provided little signs for each other countries with the menus and my felt letter board. If you’re interested in doing something similar yourself I will share a few tips here:
- Trying to prepare 11 cocktails is an awful lot, so focus on some easier options for certain countries, like beer or wine. Many of the items that are popular in Epcot are available in local stores, such as Rosa Regale wine and Shofferhofer beer.
- Plan to split drinks or serve smaller sizes, as 11 is an awful lot. The cocktails I prepared were half size servings.
- For the cocktails I used these little pouches I found on Amazon to promote social distancing and just make things easier to portion and drink overall.
- Just like you would take most of a whole day to eat or drink around Epcot, give yourself a full day even in your backyard. You may not be walking around as much but your stomach will be glad to tackle this over the course of a full day rather than a few hours!
- Recruit your friends to help. If everyone contributes a few drinks or food items it’s much easier than trying to do it all as one person!
And now onto the food and drink items we chose for each country! Of course this will vary a lot depending on what you want to do, but maybe it will inspire you with some (relatively) easy ideas if you want to tackle this yourself.
Mexico
Food: Guacamole and tortilla chips
Drink: Watermelon margaritas
Norway
Food: Potato dumplings and meatballs with lingonberry sauce (from Ikea)
Drink: Aquvavit (we just did shots of this)
China
Food: Potstickers (frozen, so easy to just heat up!)
Drinks: Tipsy Ducks in Love (cocktail, recipe coming soon), Plum Fu-Ki wine (actually from Korea)
Germany
Food: Grilled sausage with German mustard
Drinks: Shofferhofer grapefruit beer, Krombacher Pils
Italy
Food: Bruschetta
Drinks: Rosa Regale, Limoncello
American Adventure
Food: Wings, s’mores cupcakes
Drinks: American craft beer (we picked some up from local places)
Japan
Food: Edamame
Drink: Tokyo Sunset cocktail (recipe coming to the blog soon!)
Morocco
Food: Kebabs with tzatziki sauce
Drink: Moroccan sangria (recipe coming to the blog soon!)
France
Food: Macarons
Drink: French wine
UK
Food: Cornish pasties
Drink: Cider and black
Canada
Food: Poutine
Drink: Moosehead Lager
If you need some more ideas for Disney inspired food and drink items, make sure you check out my list of 30+ Disney Parks recipes!
How would you recreate Epcot in your backyard? Which country looks best to you?
This was so amazing!! Thank you so much for this wonderful surprise 😀
This looks like a lot of fun!