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Serve the sherry and the cocktails before meals, the highballs after or between meals. And don't worry about what to serve with meals. In spite of reams of literature on the subject, comparatively little wine is served at American tables, and what does appear is apt to be a mistake. Weare practically an illiterate nation in the matter of wines and when and how to serve them; and there is very little use in educating yourself, as almost nobody will know that you're doing right anyway. Besides, the cocktails that most of your guests will want make further drinking a superfluity, if not a catastrophe.
Every woman soon works out her own id~a on what to serve to whom, but-in general-most women like sherry, and this is, of course, the easiest, since it demands no preliminaries. It has the added advantage of being better for you, at least, less bad for you - than most drinks, and it is so impeccably correct that you can easily make any guest feel that she ought to like it, if she doesn't. Martinis are the cheapest of the drinks recommended and popular enough so that you can serve them to anyone unblushingly. Old-Fashioneds come into the economy class after a fashion, because of the fact that you make them singly, and usually people don't expect two. Leave the other drinks to the people you want to have settle down and stay. Scotch (or rye) and contentment are practically synonymous.
Equipment is important, too, and this is a place where feminine fanciness is out of place, but prevalent. Have good plain glass shakers, with a special one (or a special top) for stirring the Martinis instead of shaking them. Have a jigger and use it. Good cocktails are seldom made by guesswork. Have a wooden muddler to crush the sugar in Old-Fashioneds, and a shaker top on the bitters bottle. And have simple, sturdy glasses of the standard types and a large, firm tray that doesn't show rings.
Before discussing the accompaniments to cocktails, let us get into a corner and whisper a word or two about the effects. Not so long ago, no lady would have admitted that she felt any. Drunkenness then, as now, was revolting, and you were either drunk or sober. Now it is granted that even a perfect lady is occasionally somewhere between the two, with a definite leaning, of course, towards sober. Nor is this condemned as it once was. There are those who feel that there is no pleasanter feeling than that moment when you arrive at the dinnertable, heaven knows how, and are aware that everything beyond the table is vague, like a semilighted stage-set, while the shirt-fronts of the men and the white shoulders and jewels of the women are more acutely accented than ever before. But this is an experience for a lady who understands fine shadings. For the next step is neither charming nor attractive. Sensations that you keep to yourself are all very well, but shrill voices, familiarities, vulgar stories, and other obvious results of a lack of discretion are, frankly, disgusting.
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