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If I bring beer to a party and it doesn’t get opened, can I take it home with me?

Not unless you want the host to never invite you back. I can completely see how it’s tempting to bring something you brought to a party home with you if it wasn’t consumed, especially if the beer was particularly good or you don’t think the host will appreciate it, but this is terrible etiquette. Beer you bring to a party should be considered a gift to the host and it’s theirs to do with as they wish. If they want to serve the beer, great. If they instead want to keep the beer for themselves, also fine. Once you bring it, it’s no longer yours.

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Is it wrong to not use the spit bucket at a wine tasting?

It’s not wrong to not use a spit bucket if you are able to consume responsibly. However, if there are hundreds of wines to be tasted, and you have every intention of tasting them all, you’d be best off spitting. No one pouring their wine for you wants to converse with someone who’s drunk. And if you are, you won’t really remember the wine, so then what was the point of going to the tasting in the first place?

What is one tool every home bar cannot survive without?

My gut here is to say a wine opener, because who can’t survive without wine?! But since there are other ingenious ways of opening a bottle, I am going to go with a professional cocktail shaker instead, like this one. While you can use a regular glass and spoon to mix stirred cocktails, there is really no replacement for a shaker when a cocktail needs to be shaken. Every good bar should have one.