Wine Wednesday: Mixed Drinks

My mixed drinks IQ is pretty small. Growing up my parents never had hard alcohol in the house unless someone gave us a bottle as a gift, and those would sit gathering dust for years. When I hit college I discovered that I liked vodka with cranberry juice ... and almost nothing else when it came to hard alcohol. (OK, margarita on the rocks, but only with an enchilada platter.)

Long-stemmed martini glasses are the ultimate in cool, IMHO. If only I liked martinis ....
Image from myrecipes.com

Originally we weren't planning to serve any hard alcohol at the wedding, but the caterer we chose provides us with a bar package that includes tons of mixers and all of the necessary glassware: highballs, doubles, and even martini glasses if we want them. So we decided we'd like to buy a couple of bottles of alcohol for simple mixed drinks -- think gin & tonic, rum & coke, vodka & whatever. (To keep it simple, we're steering clear of mixed drinks that require multiple types of alcohol, like White Russians, Cosmopolitans, and Lemon Drop Martinis, or that need slightly exotic ingredients, like the Mojito, which needs fresh mint.)

The question is, which drinks should we pick? How many should we serve -- 1, 2, 3? And are there any obvious options I'm missing?