Company-style parties at The Plaza are, in fact, cooler than parties at The Waldorf, B-List museums, loft ‘event spaces’, or less historied (and luxe) other hotels.  To be sure, we are still talking about ballroom-style events, but The Plaza has ballrooms on two floors with a cool marble mezzanine level in between.
Coordinated variations on a strong milieu are good [...]

Much has been written on the topic of mixologists around the world getting fanatical about their ice (Sasha Petraske, who I greatly admire, being a prime example).   Why is ice so important?  Well, it melts into the drink and becomes an ingredient: WATER.
Water from ice both chills the drink and, obviously, adds water.  Notice that I did not [...]