You Are What Your Friends Drink

Over the past few weeks, I've been reorganizing my home office as part of a larger overhaul of our apartment. As I've moved furniture around and added more shelf space, I've tackled the clutter in here, resulting of boxes of books leaving my library for new starts somewhere else. Currently I'm going through my magazine collection, scanning articles from issues that have fallen apart, wait for a trip to the nearest little library, or are preparing to meet their fate in the recycling bin. 

In other words, expect posts using this material here or on Tales of Toronto.

First up: from the September 1981 issue of Epicure, an article on how to stock your home bar with booze appropriate to the lifestyle of your friends and drop-in guests. It starts with an illustration that would have been home in a 1980s clipart collection.

The rest of the article includes suggestions on what you should keep on hand to please anyone. 

How would you curate a "bar for all seasons" in 2018? Among my guesses:

• Sherry is strictly reserved for cooking. I have never seen anyone down a glass or three of sherry/apera/whatever it's called this days as a party. Kind of like I associate brandy with the ever-present bottle found in the living rooms of 1960s soap operas.
  
• Craft brands would take the place of some of the generic ones listed here, especially in the beer and bourbon categories. 

In Ontario, the LCBO still carries O'Darby, though the 21st century version has classier packaging. The green bottle of the 1981 version looks like it was manufactured for leprechauns or for those who wanted to drink something other than green beer on St. Patrick's Day.