Style Question: Displaying Alchohol, Tacky or Okay?

I had a stroke while posting that and misspelled alcohol.

-OP

It is tacky.

Unless your a drunk, in which case it is being true to yourself.

I have a tray stand containing spirits in the living room. It looks very festive and I don't want to waste what little storage space I have hiding the gin like a maiden aunt.

Oh dear, some people think you need to hide alcohol out of sight? Are you Mormons?!

Displaying is very, very old fashioned middle class and these days it's very tacky indeed.

I’m no Mormon, far from it... but I don’t want people walking into my home and thinking this is one tacky queen.

I do not display my vegetables, pasta, and probiotics either.

And I am not a Mormon.

Bottles should be kept out of sight in the cellar or kitchen. A good decanter or two might be left out in view in the study or library; never in the drawing room; never in the dining room.

I dunno, when I see a bar or sideboard setup in someone's house, I know they don't give a shit, which is plus points in my book.

When I see a wine rack built into the cabinetry or a wine refrigerator in the kitchen, that also says something . . .

I have a poppers and lube display in my dinning room.

Okay by me. I have a sideboard loaded with liquor and other spirits and a wine rack. I do not display stemware; I keep it in the cabinets in butler pantry between the kitchen and dining room.

I have a liquor cabinet in the living room...liquor is concealed, but handy when wanted.

Why do so many gay men constantly feel so judged?

Are the Queen and Prince Philip dining at your house on a regular basis?

If you have friends who care whether you have a stray bottle of wine on the kitchen counter then they're not really friends.

I have glass and chrome bar cart in my living room that holds my alcohol, wine glasses, martini glasses and accessories. I like the way it looks, and it frees up storage space. If someone doesn't like it, I couldn't give a rat's ass.

It's not so much displaying as it is easy access.

I have a room dedicated to booze. It’s called a bar.

Instead of booze can I have a cannabis bar with my pipes and bongs and various strains?

Making a display of alcohol the focal point of a room [italic]does[/italic] make a statement.

As does having a room called a bar in your house.

What kind of trash has a "bar" room in their home?

No one wants to look at your drippy bottle of Tia Maria and your schnapps collection, OP.

I still appreciate an Old Hollywood mirrored bar with glass shelves and under-lighting like those in photos from the 50's and 60's. Every Hollywood celeb had one.

R2 *you're

I hide my liquor, like any good alcoholic. In the hamper, under the bathroom vanity, even in opaque bottles scattered about the house from which I can take a quick nip whilst company is here. People ask why I don't drink more...little do they know.

People who post here seem stranger each day... "middle-class", and considered tacky "these days".... Crikey. WTF is the matter with some of you?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

^If he has Fresca on a gun, then I'm in. Only not if I have to speak with him.

I like seeing them in old movies -- Sinatra & Crosby singing "Well, Did You Ever?" in "High Society," where a bar is in the library of an elegant Newport mansion -- but I can't imagine building them anymore. A friend of mine has a really great bar set up at home that has just about anything you could want. He was a bartender/restaurant owner so it makes sense.

Hospitality, plain and simple. Some guests may like to help themselves. Many hosts prefer it that way also. What if you as host have already retired for the evening, and your guest would like a nightcap? Unless people are so religious they believe drinking sinful, or have a reformed alcoholic under their roof, it's normal to NOT hide wine and spirits.

Most very grand homes have liquor and wine in plain sight SOMEWHERE. It may be a small tray on a shelf, or it may be a more elaborate selection of offerings on a sideboard or cart. Others choose the library. I love how the most pretentious of posters on DL are always exposing themselves as struggling to seem something they're not.

[quote] Most very grand homes... the most pretentious of posters on DL

[quote]No one wants to look at your drippy bottle of Tia Maria and your schnapps collection, OP.

I will take my earrings off and sashay over to your house right now, R21. How dare you!

WTF is your point R30? Obtuse much?

[quote] People who post here seem stranger each day... "middle-class", and considered tacky "these days".... Crikey. WTF is the matter with some of you?

Datalounge is obsessed with socioeconomic status.

Next one of you strivers shall seriously pontificate on spices or salt & pepper being visible in kitchens...in 3-2-1...

I know OP doesn’t mean this, but it gives me an opportunity to show off.

This is a red wine bottle, within which is a glass spiral. Inside the spiral is white wine. The spiral is accessed through the stopped-hole on the side of the bottle. I got it in Prague 20 years ago, and it’s gotten cloudy since, but it’s still amazing. And I have no idea how it survived in my luggage with no special packaging. It’s the only alcohol I have in display in my house, besides the rubbing alcohol I keep for Martha.

I tell my high school students they need to clean up their social media before they apply to college. The first case I saw was a 17-year-old male student who had a picture on his Facebook page of him guzzling from a bottle of bourbon while holding a full bottle of gin. He wanted to go to Princeton. I told him he probably disqualified himself. He still didn't understand why.

Of course, the parents told me I was taking it too seriously. Maybe I was the problem, they said.

Holy moly, I want to go to r17s house.

I am not an alcoholic, but I keep five types of alcohol, martini glasses, wine glasses, shot glasses, and "accessories" ready and available in my home at all times.

The first thing you saw coming into our house was a bar.

Since it was a very pretty art deco bar, I never really thought about whether or not it was tacky.

I did think our living room had way too much furniture in it, especially after my parents replaced the spinet with a grand piano.

At least it wasn't a concert grand, but it wasn't a baby grand either.

R29, I do not know what kind of house guests you have, but if you are more worried about them finding alcohol than water, fruit, bread, herbal tea,......or do you keep everything out?

If you cannot trust them to open a cupboard to find alcohol, alone at night, after everyone in the house has gone to bed....I guess someone drinking like that is not someone you trust with anything.

[quote] Middle class Dataloungers are obsessed with socioeconomic status as if displaying whiskey bottles would suddenly out them as parvenus when all this time they'd had everyone fooled into thinking that they were merely slumming it in their 1977 split level.

Fixed R33

Do fuck off quietly into the night R40. Sounds like you could use a drink. Only Americans can find a bar or displayed liquor a problem. I'm bored of you. My guests have never complained, and I know by now they DO enjoy serving themselves you silly cunt.

Welcome back YMF.

Furthermore R40, on the subject of tea, I don't keep or serve "herbal tea". Herbal tea is for weirdos like you, who have nothing better to drink! If anyone comes to my house wanting tea, they get a choice of real black teas, not flowers steeped in water.

[quote] Most very grand homes have liquor and wine in plain sight SOMEWHERE. It may be a small tray on a shelf, or it may be a more elaborate selection of offerings on a sideboard or cart. Others choose the library.

How did this not got a single MARY! Good lord, r29!

I don't drink. However, I display a few top-shelf spirits on my Butler's Pantry. I want guests to know they should feel free to indulge I have seen more than one guest relax when they see it.

R45 Good on you then getting to it. Honestly I thought my remarks on proper tea are much more "Mary-worthy"....

It is the reality of the topic however. It's not typical or proper to hide it, as others suggest here. I should think only for members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, hiding it would be the norm.

[quote] Good on you then getting to it. Honestly I thought my remarks on proper tea are much more "Mary-worthy"....

No! This is more “ Mary-Worthy”!

It only looks good when you line up your alcohol along the tops your cupboards along with your collection of shot glasses and beer mugs from around the world.

I keep a cooler full of MGD out on the deck year round.

I don’t give a fuck, my house is large enough to have a bar room. It was there when we bought it and my guests love it. I hardly go into that room when we aren’t entertaining.

My liquor is out!

R51 = low born

Look up bar carts - there's a reason people have them.

However - I think having a decanter, ice bucket and nice containers is one thing.

It's another to have 50 dusty bottles of crap that most people never drink - all of those sickly-sweet liquors and mixes. There's an art to it.

[quote] I don’t give a fuck, my house is large enough to have a bar room. It was there when we bought it and my guests love it. I hardly go into that room when we aren’t entertaining. —Yes I’m tacky

You let these no nothings bully you and now you have to brag about the size of your house to compensate. Sad.

R55 fuck off

I don't need more things to dust.

R57, you do your own dusting?

R42, its not a problem. But it is a statement. People display what matters most to them. Artwork, books, bigscreen TV, pictures of their kids, indoor herb gardens.

And I was not aware that people really displayed alcohol. I had seen it on television and in old films, but never in real life.

I love scotch, hard cider, and good wine. I drink alcohol two or three times a week. But it never would occur to me to keep it in plain sight at all times any more than I keep carrots out (which I also love).

If I'm serving I put the liquor in decanters with the necessaries and leave it all on a sideboard or table where I'm having people sit down.

If I'm having a cocktail party I put a bartender behind a bar and leave things to him, with bottles and mixers bare.

I'f I'm bringing someone home I direct him to a liquor cabinet (well, there are three here - I collect booze and drink little of it) and tell him to get what he wants and to make me one too.

"Display" alcohol is gauche. Not there's anything wrong with that, but if displayed it had better be a tall skinny bottle of chianti in a woven basket, tequila with a worm in it, vintage novelty bottles done like an Egyptian god, a horse or a Ben Franklin figure, or a Nebuchadnezzar of good champagne in the world's largest ice bucket.

I Googled and found this. Like the tray on top of the table concept. Now I just have to get some Don Draper liquor glasses and I'll be good to go.

Why is a drinks trolley with liquor in crystal decanters now considered tacky? I don’t hide my booze. It’s there to be enjoyed.

Why not, if you like?

I dislike those wheely carts that may seem like a good idea but are not, and I don't like a full bar with seven types of everything at the ready, but a tray or mixing table that's well placed yet not the center of attention, and with a few favorites of the host can be a nice, if unexpected, thing.

I like the parties and the hosts who say we have this, that, and one or two more things on the tray, please help yourself or find your way to the kitchen where we have other things.

Take inspiration from the home bar of a professional drinker

This must be another cultural difference with Americans: British and European homes leave everything out. The only thing I've noticed changing with the times, is fewer people use crystal decanters.

This may come from Americans' many hang-ups.... prohibition must have left an indelible mark of shame on many of you.

For one of the low grade comments up-thread: you can arrange for a tray to be left out for a nightcap if your guests are rude enough not to retire so the staff can get some shuteye.

A tray with booze bottles on it is very Don Draper at the office; I didn't notice him doing the same thing at home. Displaying booze at home or, worse, at the office is now a thing of the past for the old middle class.

I like how Bunny Williams puts it out on a big table...

Also like a nice dark wet bar

Blake Edwards filmed much of S.O.B.in his Malibu home and around his home bar.

My preference would be to not display alcohol. Unless it's an old wine that's been in storage (has sediment), I would not decant any alcoholic drink.

What would be really cool is to know what your guest's favorite drink was and have a fresh bottle of that ready for him or her, with the right kind of glassware. That's just the ultimate. So nice.

Our old neighbor had a bottle of Scotch (my mom's brand) that he kept just for her to drink when she came over. (He didn't drink Scotch.) He also had splits (small bottles) of Champagne / sparkling wine just for guests. I thought that was so sweet and thoughtful.

I have it out on a sideboard in the dining room in my country house. My house in the city is more minimalist and I don’t really drink as much there, so I just have some wine and gin tucked away in a corner of the kitchen.

Photo #20 — you tell me

(Via a Tasteful Friends post, in re:11MM house in Ft. Smith, AR.)

R67 I'm keen on that simple presentation as well. It looks my "honour bar" on my built in bookshelves. I keep biscuit jars (with the porcelain inserts) on the same shelf for ice. I also leave a few snifters and whisky glasses beside the tray. It's strategically located in my hall between my kitchen and the living room.

I don't find the full bars to be something "tacky" or ugly at all, I simply don't have the real estate for one. I so enjoy being a guest at homes which have these.... I find them fun, and often really cozy.

Totally tacky. I always smirk when I see this in people's homes.

Wow, R72, that is the tackiest house I've ever seen. The crucifix in the dining room is a nice touch! Fort fucking Smith, Arkansas. I've been to Fort Smith, and I'd pay $11m to get out of there.

R74 Are you a non-drinker? If not, where do you "hide" your libations?

Tacky. Alcohol belongs in the bar. Now displayed like some work of art

R77 Unless someone has found a way to frame the actual bottles, I don't see your comparison. What shall those of us lacking a dedicated bar do in your tastemaker's opinion?

Unless you are entertaining why have a liquor display? Dust collector! Veto.

R79 I think for most of us who drink regularly, and have guests who do, it's simply pragmatic to keep it out. It isn't on "display" as say a flower arrangement is. It's simply just there on the ready to pour. I feel the same about a wine rack.

I like the idea that it’s always ready for guests. All you need is to put out fresh ice and some sliced limes. A lot of decorating to me is about feeling comfortable and having guests feel the same. Alcohol displayed as If to say “did you notice I can afford expensive liquor?” is tacky. However having it out as if to say “help yourself, and have as much as you’d like” Is welcoming and not tacky to me at all.