The cocktail party that works is the one that does less than it should. Twelve passed bites do not work. Three signature cocktails do not work. A sit-down menu pretending to be a cocktail party does not work. What works is five small things you can pick up with one hand, one good drink already poured into a pitcher, a bowl of nice olives somewhere visible, and a host who actually shows up to her own party instead of disappearing into the kitchen for the first hour.
That is the whole formula. People come to a cocktail party to talk to each other. The food is there to keep nobody from getting drunk on an empty stomach, the drink is there to give them something to hold, and the host is there to keep the room moving. Nothing else.
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