Clear Ice DIY - free. 1 lt prebatched Negroni - 15EUR 1 lt prebatched Old fashioned - probably around 20 1 lt Mohito/Smash families - again around 15-20 1-2 bottles of not terrible prosecco - 10EUR each (good thing about Europe - a lot of the PDO wine products are acceptable quality and quite cheap) Syrups - if you use essential oils for flavoring - you could get down to 2 for liter of cordial concentrate. By using some tricks you can stretch a couple of citruses to make a lot of juice. If you home carbonate your water - it is penny on the liter - so you can spritz the cocktails to make them lighter.
You can legitimately get 15 people quite tipsy for 5-6 euro per person.
Booze in USA is not terribly more expensive - and some stuff is even cheaper so I guess a chatgpt created bar program for home drinking could get into this budget too.
being social != drinking. likewise, drinking != being social
You can still be social and not drink alcohol. You can drink alcohol and not be social.
Pretty much every establishment that serves alcohol nowadays also serves some non-alcoholic alternative. Every major alcohol brand has a non-alcoholic version of their beverage, i.e. Budweiser, Coors, Busch, Heineken, Guinness.
We know that people who meet with their friends once a week for dinner are happier and have better health outcomes. We know that being married increases your lifespan. What story does alcohol with its deep cultural influence and use in social settings play in health outcomes - we don't know. We just know that alcohol is a poison, a poison that humans as a species have adapted to be able to consume and process better than other animals.
Speaking without any evidence whatsoever to back it up, I could totally imagine bimodal health impacts from alcohol where one group increases their health outcomes through moderate drinking as a social lubricant decreasing stress, increasing community, increasing the likelihood of marriage, and another group increases stress, isolation, and negative health impacts through excessive drinking.
Either way it would go, I would like real, empirical, LONGITUDINAL data to direct me on how to view alcohol, as opposed to the current state of things.
I may not be going out as much as before, but I've started kickboxing instead and it turns out that people who are serious about sports do not drink, so going to the club is my new, non-alcoholic, socializing.
Even casual drinkers I know are so happy after giving up. They are more happy, sleep better, feel better etc.
The "socializing" people used to do with drinking, they are now replacing it by joining gyms, running marathons/ironmans and learning martial arts.
This is great!
randycupertino•2mo ago