While perusing The Rules for Thanksgiving Wine on the NYT cooking site, I noted that amongst various reasonable suggestions (No Pairings Are Necessary, Serve Both Red and White) was the formula Buy One Bottle for Each Adult. While I understand the concept of buying a bit more than you need in order to account for contingencies, an entire bottle of wine for each adult seems borderline comical.
Is this really a good rule of thumb in your experience? Do folks typically drink a bottle each? I usually buy three or four bottles for fifteen or so adults and seem to have plenty left over each year.
For a long meal, I could easily drink three glasses of wine, or about 3/4 of a bottle. I don’t have a problem of one bottle per person, expecting to have some left over.
I think this is reasonable if Thanksgiving is an all-day thing. When our family was still alive, people would start showing up at 10am to get their food in the queue while half of us went to play golf. Dinner was at 4pm and people would start drifting off around 8pm. With wine coolers galore (real ones, not malt beverage crap) I’d say a bottle per person was a good rule of thumb with all of the other drinks available. I’d say a better rule of thumb is wine drinkers x 2
It really depends on the specifics. At our Thanksgiving gathering, maybe a quarter of the adults have a full glass of wine or more. Half the adults have a half glass and the remainder don’t drink wine at all. One full bottle per adult would be way, way too much.
[quote=cardinal_fang]While I understand the concept of buying a bit more than you need in order to account for contingencies, an entire bottle of wine for each adult seems borderline comical.
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Thanksgiving is an entire afternoon with your extended family. That includes the Let’s Go Brandon grandfather, it includes the racist uncle, as well as many close people you care about and haven’t seen for many moons. This is all going on with if not the biggest meal of the year (maybe even two!) all while a football game is going on as well.
In Wisconsin, a bottle of wine per adult (or equivalent in Bud Lite or Wild Turkey) for the holidays is comical only at the low end.
When I got married, I was ordering the booze for the reception.
The sales guy said, “For this many people I’d advise X cases of beer.”
I said, “An awful lot of the guests are farmers.”
“Okay, double it,” the sales rep said. “Now, for Scotch, how about Y bottles?”
I said, “The ones who aren’t farmers are mainly lawyers.”
“Double that, too,” said the sales rep.
We didn’t have any Scotch or beer left over. Only a lonely barely touched bottle of vodka and a bit of gin. (There were a few bottles of wine left over when the hall closed down, but some of our guests liberated them to continue the party out in the parking lot.)
For the two of us who will be at tomorrow’s feast (stuffed cornish game hen and a salad) we will share one bottle of wine, and it will not be finished. At least not by me.
Not much to add. For a high end dinner out with experienced wine folks we figure 2 bottles per couple. The typical man will drink 1+ and the typical woman a bit less than 1.
For an all day social event you’d want 50-100% more than that. Net of the non-drinkers, non-wine drinkers, and lightweights in your crowd.
Age matters too. If the guest list is mostly in their late 70s or 80s, it might be a glass or two each. Mostly in their 30s? Gonna be more unless they’re health nuts.
Just chiming in not to call you out specifically for what was just a casual comment, but to say that there are plenty of adults in their “youthful” age range who don’t drink in quantity (or at all). The “anyone who is a vigorous human who doesn’t drink a lot at parties must have some non-conforming reason” perspective is part of the generally toxic relationship we have culturally with alcohol.
That said, I tend to agree with most here that for an event that includes social time in addition to a long meal, one bottle of wine (or some combination of alcoholic beverages that equate) seems like a very safe option.
You and I have conflated two issues: personal preference / social disposition, and physical capacity.
I referred to the elders who largely lack the physical capacity (any more) to drink much and contrasted that with youth which has that physical capacity. I attended a birthday dinner on Sunday with a dozen people. 9 of whom were in their 80s, 2 60s and 1 70s. I was the baby at 65. The serious oldsters enjoyed their short glass and that was that
You’re of course also correct that the current younger generation is, on average, more health-oriented and probably drinks less than e.g. the 30yos in 1950 or 1980 did.
And yes, one of the things which has changed socially at least some is the expectation that the only kind of worthwhile drinking is “drink until wasted” and that “there must be something wrong with you” if that isn’t your preferred drinking mode.
Of course there’s also an element of SES & culture here. 30yos who repair trucks and 30yos who are college profs may have very different ideas of what constitutes “the usual amount of drinking with the boys on a Saturday afternoon”.
For something like Thanksgiving? Two boxes of wine, Franzia’s “Chillable Red” and some sort of white (Moscato’s popular in our family). Save the bottles for something fancy.
It’s easy, as long as your immediate family are all Jewish immigrants and your in laws are all Chinese immigrants. Not one football fan in our entire extended family.
Both of us get AARP ads, etc. We have one bottle between the two of us, and always some left over.
We might finish the bottle as a nitecap.
So, a full bottle per person is a LOT. Especially as in a group of say 8 adults, you are gonna have one in recovery, another that cant drink due to medical reasons and at least one designated driver.
