My friend Mike has rules for hosting parties. They go like this:
• Under 25 years old: Party is BYOB. You can tell people if you want, but they should know. Bring your own beer. Bring your own mix. Bring your own bulk pack Cheetos.
• 25 – 30 years old: Host should have wine and beer stocked and there should be snacks available. You’re an old fart now so there’s a bit more party responsibility. Try and squeeze a trip in to pick up some booze between renewing your mortgage and seeing the doctor about your kidney stones.
• 30 – 40 years old: All of the above plus an open bar. If you follow Mike’s rules, this decade is going to hit the pocketbook a little bit.
• Over 40 years old: Open bar plus catering plus staff. Prime time, baby.
So those are his rules.
My rules are: If you’re coming over bring a chair. See, because we rarely provide people with anything. No drinks, no seating, no toilet paper in the bathroom, and definitely no old butler walking around wearing tails and a pencil moustache asking if you’d like a seashell covered in truffle oil and swan liver.
Instead we stick a piece of paper on the front door telling you to meet us in the back, and then help you get started on the two six-packs you brought over. If you’re lucky, we might have a leftover bag of stale Doritos kicking around or maybe some puddings in the cupboard. If not, we’ll need your credit card to order a pizza.
I am an extremely cheap person. So I get a kick out of the random assortment of beers leftover in the fridge the morning after a party. You can basically play detective to figure out who was over the night before: Rock Star energy drink with vodka (night-shift worker trying to stay up), cans of Budweiser (grad student on a budget), Heineken in a bottle (yuppie couple with cubicle jobs), and bottles of Smirnoff Ice (girls).
Man, I love that random mish-mash of assorted beers and drinks in the fridge. Especially because it makes me feel like a better host the next time people come over.
AWESOME!
If your fridge has oversized brown bottles of beer with flip top stoppers and an abundance of consonants in the labelling, that’s a sign you’ve had Europeans at your party.
Umm… how old are those “girls”??
Smirnoff has nothing to do with age! I always drink it with my stepmum even though I am 18 and she is 39! (Don’t worry, we’re European and my drinking is perfectly legal)
Poor Americans, nay poor everyone who has to wait ’till they are twenty one, sure you COULD drink underage, but Pubs and the occasional dive where you’re FAIRLY sure that the bar tender used to slay dragons with just the hair on his chest are the best parts of drinking! That’s why in Canada as soon as you turn 18 you’re instantly REQUIRED to make a huge road trip to Quebec and get sh*tfaced. Let’s her it for the great white north! Woooo! :D
Ever notice the East has Quebec, West has Alberta and the rest of the losers in the middle are stuck with Manitoba……
Clearly you haven’t invited me over to enough parties, or you would know that Smirnoff Ice could just as well be an indicator of “Fred”. Ditto goes for: Mikes Hard anything, Bacardi Breezers (Mojito flavor in particular), Zima, Bartles & James Wine Coolers, Shirley Temples in a bottle, etc.
In fact, when I was living in New York and a big Yankees fan, some jerk friend of mine went to a Red Sox game in Boston, and brought me back a T-shirt that read: “Jeter drinks wine coolers” (with the obvious implication that this was some shot at Jeter’s manhood. Well, in a sign of solidarity, I added with some permanent marker “…and so do I!” mmmm.. tasty beverages that mask the taste of alcohol and give you a sugar rush… AWESOME!
Good thing I didn’t make that “Zima” joke in my earlier comment. That could have been awkward.
Fred, may I recommend my fav cooler right now, Woody’s mexican lime. Green and tasty!
You are also forgetting that when you find craft beers, “Bohemian”, “Steamwhistle”, or “Rolling Rock (for the Yanks)”, your party has been visited by hipsters. Don’t forget to also check your CD collection to do an inventory of all of your “Broken Social Scene” CDs. They’re probably gone.
but Steamwhistle is goooood! actually though, my fave is from the Flying Monkeys brewery in Barrie. Doesn’t matter if you’re a hipster or not…great beer is just: AWESOME!!
Woody’s Mexican Lime? Sounds delicious! Nothing sounds better to drink next to the pool on a hot summer day… or to announce to all the ladies: “Now HERE is a man that can handle his alcohol… not only can he drink up all of the 4% alcohol content, but he can handle more sugar than could be found in 6 bowls of Lucky Charms”
I think when you hit 30 you are only supposed to have chilled vodka, gin, and wine in your fridge. It takes up a lot less space than beer or wine coolers, gets you toasted quicker, and is looks more sophisticated. On the down side it could also be a sign that you are a raging alcoholic!
Cheers,
KG
If you ever find a bottle of Port in your fridge the morning after, then you may have been gatecrashed by the British Conservative Political Party. Be wary.
Or Santa.
You have beer left over after a party? What went wrong?
Eh, I dunno. I’m in the 25-30 range and my husband still makes his friends BYOB. The rule is anyone can drink anything…but everyone has to show with a 6 pack.
“we stick a piece of paper on the front door telling you to meet us in the back, and then help you get started on the two six-packs you brought over”
that is so accurate its brilliant ;)
I’ve trained my friends to not only bring their own beer, but to bring a package of toilet paper.
In my house there’s usually Corona or Presidente left (that means you got some Hispanic people over), oh and Mike’s Hard Lemonade is the best.
Hi there, awesome site. I thought the topics you posted on were very interesting
I prefer hosting the 26er party. Everyone bring over a 26er of your choice of booze (vodka, gin, rum, tequila…etc) and a bottle or two of something to mix it with. Then everyone is allowed to mix their own drinks with whatever the hell they want.
Haha, excellent. you know you’ve had a bogan cheapass Aussie over if there is Red Bitter cans left over…on the other hand, you know you’ve got true Aussie friends if there are no drinks left, what was bought by the aussies was consumed by the aussies – that and a bit of every one elses stash too :)
We love our booze :P
And that random bottle of the hard stuff (Whiskey, straight vodka, Jamaican rum, etc) that is almost empty (if not empty and laying in the middle of the hallway for someone to trip on), is reminisce of me, who drank the entire thing alone and still could walk a straight line. I love having a very very high tolerance to alcohol. It makes it amusing when you are the only sober one at a party, but aren’t acting like a prude because you are drinking more than everyone else… You remember EVERYTHING everyone else did and can hold it over their heads. :D
I’m about to hit 30, it’s a good thing you published this. now I know what to do :)
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen Bergamo
I like when you can then take a six pack of assorted leftover beers to another party. The beers get passed back and forth between friends. I’m one of the aforementioned grad students on a budget.
Haha! I’ve totally done that. I had a roommate that moved out last minute but they had a random stash of cheap liquor in their room as well as a few random beers/fruity drinks in the fridge. My lease was up and I didn’t want to move the stuff (or drink it honestly) so I boxed it up and took it to a friend’s barbeque. They loved it and thought I was “overly generous”… Ha!
When I moved to the suburbs in my 30’s I thought it was necessary to build a bar for my new basement. It is always open and fully stocked. But now that I’m over 40, I don’t think I’ll be hiring a waitstaff.
I’m not much of a drinker of alcohol for a number of reasons, but I have a sister who loves to and she can! So when she visits we go to the award winning Larch Hills winery, where there is taste testing and she buys a case of her favorites; it’s not sold where she lives. She calls this her well deserved holiday from the big city and her stressful corporate job.
So then it’s off to the liquor store where Pomtini’s and Pina colada’s are also purchased because she doesn’t want to drink alone, and since she loves the wine, I get to indulge…I sip away, can handle at least one, maybe 2.
When she leaves,she takes the wine but leaves the breezers; they last a long time around here and they are awesome!!!
it’s all fun and games as long as somebody doesn’t get hurt~thanks sista’
true story: one time, she fell down and was badly hurt because she went out the door where the stairs weren’t finished-ouch-sorry sister:(
And if you’re in Louisiana, it’s 10 different kinds of Abita floating around in your fridge. Even better if you find an out-of-season bottle in there! (Like the single bottle of Strawberry lager in my fridge right now.)
I say thanks GOD….
Such different drinks from Mexico. Here it’s Mexican beer, maybe the occasional Heineken, tequila, mezcal, rum, whiskey and vodka. Smirnoff Ice? Never. Don’t know if you can ever buy it here.
That’s OK!
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