Best alcohol for party?

My 2 cents:

Dinastía Vivanco, Rioja, Crianza. If you can find it a very very good spanish red wine. Not expensive, at least in Spain, 8€ at the supermarket.

Condado de Oriza, Ribera del Duero, Crianza. A very, very good and affordable red wine Ribera. Maybe 7€ at the supermarket.

White wines, two choices:

1.- Whatever "Albariño" you can find in you country. You won´t get disappointed. These wines are a bit acid but fantastic ones.

2.- If you´re on the "sweet or no acid" side, my recommendation goes to a decent "Ribeiro". Just be warned they´re very easy to drink and after of 3 to 4 glasses they go directly to your head, and everybody is loosening up.

On beers.

Right now, I´m favoring "Franziskaner" a wonderful german made beer with dense bubbles, especially the bottled ones vs the can ones.

Regards,

Daniel

+1 to Phaelon's suggestion w one caveat. I'd recommend an independently owned store (you should be able to get recommendations by googling around) and ask to speak to the manager. Don't be afraid to tell them your budget and let them make the choices; since you don't drink it, your tastes are kind of irrelevant. If you ask in advance, you may be able to arrange to return un-opened bottles, or you could use them for holiday gifts. You probably can also get a case price (10% off) even on a mixed case of wine, if that's the direction you are going to go.

FWIW, my recommendations are:
Whiskey- if you mean American there is not that much demand these days. If you mean Scotch, Dewar's is a good choice.
Bourbon- Maker's Mark or Wild Turkey or jack Daniels (not technically bourbon, but whatever).
Gin- Beefeaters or Tanquerey
Vodka- Absolut
Wine generally varies depending on what local importers and distributors carry, so go w the store's recommendations. If it's a holiday party, you might want to consider champagne. Korbel is a good California sparkling wine; and there are many good French sparkling wines that are less expensive because they do not come from the Champagne region and thus cannot be called Champagne under French law.
Beer- Sam Adams Boston Lager is a safe choice for a somewhat upscale beer and Corona or any of the Belgian style wheat ales (Blue Moon, etc) is good for those that want something a little lighter.

Sounds like you are a very considerate host. Have fun!

Thanks for the responses.

Grain alcohol mixed with whatever was the most popular at the frats back in college.

Good responses above, but an important factor that hasn't been addressed, which will influence people's drink selections, is the kind of food that is being served. It would be helpful if you could give us some idea of that.

Also, provided that it is a suitable match to the food, IME the most popular drink selection among the type of crowd you appear to be describing is white wine, so I'd purchase a goodly amount of that. There are lots of good choices, but you most likely can't go wrong with any French white under the Jadot label that fits within your budget, Jadot being a négociant.

Regards,
-- Al