We’re having people over for New Year’s Eve and I wanted to do some sort of mixed drink. Unfortunately, I have very little experience with making them, or in fact, drinking them. Preferably, I’d like to buy no more than two different kinds of alcohol. I picked up champagne already, but am looking for something else for the rest of the party.
Oh, and red wine gives me a head ache.
Spiked eggnog is a good New Year’s treat - you can use Southern Comfort, brandy, whiskey, rum, whatever. Good hot or cold - I prefer it hot, but there’s no such thing as bad 'nog. 
Hot tea with Bailey’s.
Vodka, rum, and whiskey are good basic popular liquors, and if you have a variety of mixers you can make most people happy.
The Moscow Mule is a drink I had for the first time a few weeks ago and one that I’ll be coming back to, for sure. It’s basically vodka, lime juice and ginger beer. Place I had it put mint stalks in but they were just being pretentious. Great drink!
Stolly bolly dahling.
vodka. definately get vodka. for mixers have some juice (orange and/or cranberry) some club soda, and some pop (whichever brands/flavours your friends like.) vodka can be pretty much mixed with anything. for brands, stolichnaya is a decent vodka, reasonably priced. luksowa is much better, for about the same price.
for a second choice, get a rye or a rum. if you get rye, your mixers will be coke, ginger ale, maybe barlime (impress your friends with a whiskey sour!) if rum, your mixers will be coke, juice (orange and/or cranberry and/or pineapple) and maybe eggnog. for brands, if you choose rye, canadian club is about the lowest in quality you should go. crown royal is much better, though slightly more expensive. for rum, let someone else make a suggestion - i don’t like rum, and can’t make a reccomendation of a decent rum for a fair price.
or you could get a gin, if you have any gin fans coming. for mixers get tonic water & cranberry juice. if you get a gin, tanqueray, beefeater, & gordon’s are all decent, and similarly priced. bombay sapphire is slightly more expensive, but also slightly higher in quality.
My basic bar isn’t very sophisticated, but it gets the job done:
Absolute vodka (unflavored) - cranberry juice for mixer
Captain Morgan’s rum - coke for mixer
Jack Daniels whiskey - ginger ale for mixer
Grey Goose vodka - tonic for mixer, plus a lemon
The Grey Goose is optional, though be sure you have some tonic and a lemon in case somebody wants a vodka tonic. If you toss in some beers, it will be the rare person who wouldn’t be able to find something to drink:
Vodka cranberry
Vodka tonic
Jack & ginger
Jack & coke
Captain & coke
I like getting the bucket drinks that are sold at most grocery stores. You add the liquor, freeze, & serve. I prefer the margaritas myself
Crown Royal, Peach Schnapps and cranberry juice is quite tasty. My drink of choice is Amaretto and coke. Ask your friends who are coming what kind of liquors they like. None of my friends drink rum, so I never buy it. I usually have Crown, a good vodka, and tequila. Nobody likes tequila, but at the end of the night, everybody always ends up doing shots. Make sure you have some beer because some people don’t like liquor, and some non-alcoholic choices for the DDs.
Basic cheap bar:
Vodka - some people say they can taste the difference between good vodka and bad vodka - you are generally either drinking it so cold you can’t taste it, or mixing it - and the difference between good and bad vodka to me is “how much lighter fluid can I taste.” (And I drink vodka).
Whiskey (you can do a bourbon like Jack Daniels or Jim Beam, or Canadian Club or Crown Royal, or something in a cheap blended Scotch - I’d go with the bourbon - people have expectations for Scotch)
Tequila (unless you want your drink of the night to be Margaritas - tequila isn’t much of a New Years Eve drink).
Gin (to me, gin is also a summer drink - martini snobs will be disappointed by vodka martinis - but there aren’t a lot of gin drinks and it doesn’t mix well)
Rum - mixes with darn near everything, works well year round. In the summer it makes lovely umbrella drinks, in the winter you can throw it in eggnog or mix it with Coke. Don’t go with spiced or coconut - plain old rum is much more flexible.
Brandy - the Wisconsin version of rum. Year round sweet mixer for darn near everything. But unless you are in Wisconsin, you won’t get a lot of use from it. (Yes, I’m making fun of Wisconsin).
I wouldn’t break the bank with Baileys (Anyone who likes Bailey’s can put you in the poorhouse drinking the stuff) or any other liqueur.
If I were buying just two bottles for a party, I’d buy a Whiskey and a Vodka. Three bottles I’d add the rum.
Oh, I’ll add one other note, the quickest way to build your own liquor cabinet is to host the party BYOB - or tell people you will have “some stuff” (i.e. I’ll have beer or I’ll be serving spiked eggnog) but they should feel free to bring their own if they want something specific. People will bring whatever crap they have lying around (or a new bottle of whatever they like) and leave it behind. You will then spend five years wondering where three almost empty bottles of Midori came from (and wondering if this means you need new friends). We always end up with more beer and wine than we started with (and we stopped telling people to bring alcohol long ago),
Were you looking to offer one mixed drink like Martha Stewart does, to go with the food she serves or were you asking for advice on setting up a small bar?
I can’t give hard liquor away.
We’ve had several parties since moving back into our newly renovated house. I have a fully-stocked bar – basic whiskey, scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka, tequila, and rum, plus higher-end examples of all those for the more demanding palette; I’ve stocked up soda and tonic and OJ and pineapple and cranberry and Coco Lopez and dacquiri mix; I have a zillion different cordials; I can mix practically anything Mr. Bston has ever heard of… and then people come over and say, “Yeah, do you have a beer? Hopefully something light?” or “Just Diet Coke for me, thanks.”
Grrrr.
I have a few reliables that like the exlpore the world of single-malt Scotch with me, but that’s it.
I need to cultivate more boozy friends, I guess.
White Russians are awesome. Equal parts vodka & kahlua with half-and-half to taste. Mmmm!
It is obvious you have never invited me over for a drink.
I once took a bartending course and had to invent my own cocktail as a final exercise. I came up with the “Scotch engineer” – one shot of Scotch, one shot of gin, club soda. Don’t try it. Its only value is as a liqueous pun.
sailor jerry’s spiced rum. It’s dirt cheap ($18 for the 1.75 on sale) 95 proof and goes with:coke,cherry coke, vanilla coke, egg nog, coffee, banannas foster, Ginger ale, 7up…
It’s the crack cocaine of rums.
I have two.
My personal favorite is Nuts and Berries, which is Frangelico (hazelnut liquer), Chambord (blackberry or raspberry liquer, I forget which) and cream (or half and half.) It’s like dessert, very sweet.
I once had a shot of strawberry flavored tequila in a chocolate shot glass. I felt decadent and very naughty after downing that bad boy. I guarantee you the ladies will love it. 
I too am having people over NYE. It’s our annual Drunken Monopoly Extravaganza.
I made sure to tell people it is BYOB. For msyelf though since I hate the taste of liquor, I am making glorious amounts of Sex on the Beach.
Supposed to be 1 oz Vodka, 1 oz Peach Schnapps, orange juice and cranberry juice. I never measure, I just get a glass pour up some alcohol and add juice until I can’t taste the liquor. Good times.