Best alcohol for party?

Thanks again for the additional responses. A mixture of dips, shrimp, sausages, and fruitcake will be served. The wine suggesions seem smart.

Sounds like a plan!

White wine would most likely be fine with all of that except for some kinds of sausages, certain kinds being better with red wine or beer. Among white wines, besides the ones I and others mentioned earlier you might consider a dry German Riesling, to go with the sausages in particular.

Champagne would probably be fine with everything, although a downside of champagne is that to do it right you would want to supply the proper kind of glasses (or plastic equivalents), and dealing with and setting out an adequate quantity of them may be a bit cumbersome. The proper kind of glass is a tall, thin flute, such as what is shown in the first photo here, NOT a "coupe" style glass, shown in the second photo.

I would also provide bottled water, as others mentioned earlier, especially Perrier sparkling water, and a quantity of beer.

Assuming you omit the hard liquor that has been mentioned, and stick primarily to wine and/or champagne, for 20 or so moderate drinkers I would assume, to be safe, an average of two drink-equivalents of wine or champagne per person (assuming 5 ounces of wine per drink-equivalent) plus some margin. That adds up to about 8 bottles of wine or champagne, plus margin. Personally, I'd get about 10 bottles and enjoy what is left over with my wife, during the following days :-)

If you allocate that between red and white, as opposed to champagne, make the majority of it white, as I suggested in my earlier post.

Regards,
-- Al

None its bad DUDE!!

Nouveau Beaujolais

if party is in either of those two states, i'd certainly prefer Mary J.