Wedding Reception Forum

How far in advance to buy alcohol?

Our wedding is December - how far in advance can we buy our alcohol? I assume liquor can be whenever so this is more for wine and beer (bottles, not kegs). I am starting to look for sales but don't want to jump the gun

Re: How far in advance to buy alcohol?

  • Wine would definitely be good to buy now, so long as you don't store it anywhere where it will get too warm. For only a few months you don't need to worry about properly cellaring it, but you also don't want to leave a box of wine in front of a warm window, or let it sit around in 80 degree heat nonstop until your wedding. Out of direct light and in normal room temperature it will absolutely be fine between now and December.

    Same for liquor - just keep it out of direct light and it's fine.

    For beer it varies by type of beer, at least to huge beer snobs like myself. Generally, the lighter color the beer, the fresher it should be served. By fresh, I mean ideally purchased no more than 2 months from when you intend to drink them. Anything in a green or clear bottle should be served fresh because those are terrible at protecting your beer from light. IPAs are always best fresh because the hoppy floral character will fade. Personally, Coronas, IPAs, or bottled heinkens I wouldn't buy more than a few weeks early, but I am a huge crazy beer snob. It's not like they'll go bad. They just won't be as crisp and delicious.

    But stouts, porters, and browns you can buy now and serve 6 months (or more) from now as long as you adhere to the no direct light and no 80+ degree temp rules. Cans keep better than bottles because no light gets in. But I'm guessing you probably don't want cans at your wedding. The only exception to the stouts/browns/darks rule is that if you have stout or brown that is flavored (i.e. a coffee porter, or a coconut stout) the flavor will fade, sometimes quickly. So those are best fresh as well.

  • I called the local liquor places to get an idea on prices and availability. They were all pretty helpful. I'm getting married next week and I just picked up the liquor & wine (found an awesome store that gave us everything at cost) and I'm calling the beer distributor for kegs on Monday. I wanted to do all of this months ago to get it over with, but honestly I didn't want stuff lying either. Definitely weigh those pros & cons.   
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