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I'm currently writing a birthday invitation in which I want to state that I'll also provide hard alcohol for those who prefer it over beer. Is there a word to describe people with this preference?
As it will be in an invitation, I'd prefer a word that comes across as witty and sophisticated without a pejorative tone.
Serious drinkers
Serious drinkers are people who like to drink, and it implies that they like a high alcohol content. As ‘serious’ is a word that can apply to things like ‘work’ you can say things like ‘the serious drinkers among you will be able to apply yourselves to the tequila shots we’ll have lined up on the bar’. Which is humourous as it implies they make drinking alcohol into ‘work’.
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/serious_drinker.html
Highballers
I made this up by imagining that your friends might line up to drink ‘highballs’ - a kind of cocktail. And then found a song by ‘the highballers’ called ‘I didn’t mean to get drunk last night but I did’ which you can hear at the link below. Highballs are quite a classy cocktail. So you can say something like ‘the highballers among you may enjoy throwing down a few cocktails, whereas for the rest of you, there are shots’.
Drinking Afficionados
An afficionado is someone who has done something so much - that they’ve become an expert.
Wine or grape (or grain) afficionados. Smirnoff Afficionados (you could use a drink brand-name in your title - in this example it would mean someone who’s an ‘expert’ in Smirnoff vodka). ‘Grain’ is a generic term for kinds of alcohol made from ‘grain’, like whiskey.
‘The grain afficionados among you can enjoy testing the Jack Daniels and other hard tipples’.
(Saying that they will ‘test it’ is humourous, as again it implies they are ‘experts’ in alcohol.)
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/aficionado
Drinking Experts, Alcohol Experts
This implies ‘people who are so experienced in drinking that they can advise others’ which is quite funny. ‘The drinking experts among you will enjoy burrowing deeper into the cocktail bar...’
Along the same lines is:
Vodka Doctors, Gin nurses
This poetic idea implies that alcohol is being applied as a medicine (not so far from the truth, heh!)
‘The vodka doctors among you will enjoy nursing your wounds with some harder alcohol’.
A ‘doctor’ can also be someone who mixes drinks - we say ‘to doctor a drink’ meaning to add extra alcohol, or poison, don’t we.
Cocktail Spinner
A ‘spin doctor’ is another idea that could relate, as could a DJ who ‘spins’ - stories, and drinks or cocktails, in this case. The ‘master of ceremonies’ can be a ‘spin doctor’. Dr. Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde are literary references that might relate - where a ‘sudden and terrifying transformation occurs that makes things go out of control’ (as does sometimes happen - when people get drunk).
‘The Dr. Jekyll within you will come out when he sees the hard alcohol - while you’ll be Hyding from work the next morning’.
Other Ideas
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/serious_drinker.html
Vodka Guzzler
(or any other kind of specific drink or cocktail with ‘guzzler’)
You could be inspired by... a cocktail book. They have such great names.
Cocktail swizzlers ‘people who swizzle cocktails’
Jack Daniels swiggers ‘people who throw down whiskey’.
You could look at - specifically what drink sums up your audience - and make a name around that.
Hotshotters. Vodka totters. Gin swiggers. Etc.
All this reminds me of a line from a song I wrote, which goes ‘Biarritz - let’s drive! We’re gonna throw down tequila, five at a time’. Heady days.
But not, the morning after, obviously.
Good luck with your party!
"Hard drinker" is the most normal phrase, with "hardened drinker" and "serious drinker" softening the phrase a bit. You might find that plenty of hard drinkers aren't offended by being called that.
If you will allow me to attempt to coin a phrase may I suggest "for those who prefer their drinks refined ".
Many decades ago I was unable to down a shot of whiskey, my uncle referred to me as a ‘milk belly’. So I suppose the opposite of that would a ‘whiskey belly’, however I prefer ‘gin belly’ as one who prefers hard drink over beer.
I cannot come up with term that specifically means a drinker of hard liquor, but perhaps you're looking at it from the wrong direction.
For those who prefer their drinks from the still, bestill your hearts, for serve liquor, I will ...
A sophisticated person isn't fond of all hard alcohol. There is no sophistication in liking it all. Rather, a sophisticated person develops a taste for a particular liquor, thus we say things like, "John's a scotch man."
As for your invitation, what you would put is "Beer, wine, and liquor will be served." If you're going to also have mixers for the liquor, you could change the word "liquor" to "cocktails" as cocktails includes not just hard alcohol but also ingredients to make mixed drinks.
You would not want to put any statements about guests' preferences because it's completely irrelevant. Saying "I'll provide" for "those who prefer" makes you sound ungracious, like you're fishing for a compliment, like you're going to all this trouble and you want people to know.
Moreover, were you to use some "witty, yet sophisticated" term for liquor drinkers, the fact that you're not doing so for beer and wine drinkers could come off as judgy to people who don't like liquor, like you're looking down your nose at them, which is underpinned by the fact that you're making this statement that you're making a special effort to cater to liquor drinkers, whom you're singling out on the invitation, an effort everyone knows is far more expensive than beer and table wine. Even if it's only a slight perception of you being judgy and you advertising going to extra expense and elaboration for your special, liquor-preferring guests, you don't want that.
