Between 1990 and 2001, the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office funded excavations of four saloon sites within the Virginia City National Historic Landmark District: O'Connor and O'Shanahan's Hibernia Brewery and Saloon; O'Brien and Costello's Shooting Gallery and Saloon; John Piper's Old Corner Bar (which after 1877 also served as the saloon for the opera house); and the Boston Saloon (an African American establishment). From the 300k+ artifacts we retrieved from these four sites, it is possible to build an understanding of what was served in a Western saloon - both in drink and food.

The Hibernia Saloon claimed the title "brewery," which did not mean that it actually brewed anything; instead it meant that it had a contract with a brewery and consequently offered beer on tap - not just in bottles.

In general, the saloons offered a fairly large spectrum of possible drinks. It was possible to see some variation in preferences of drinks from one establishment to another, but they all offered whiskey, beer, wine, and soda drinks. We found fragments of a gin bottle at Piper's, which after 1863 also offered water from a carbon water filter made in London.

Local tradition often emphasized the wealth of Virginia City and the Comstock Mining District by claiming that people frequently drank champagne and and ate oysters - and indeed, one finds oyster shells everywhere, but the dark bottles with a "kick-up" on the bottom, which people assumed were for champagne, did not always hold the bubbly: we discovered several sealed bottles in the style of the so-called "champagne bottles"; in transport, one leaked some of the contents from the dried cork, and it was dark red and had the distinctive small of Port (but it tasted horrible!!!). You can see the full bottle to the left of this image - which includes many other bottle types as well as keg taps from the excavations, shown here as part of an exhibit that we put together (and is now, in part, online) called "Havens in a Heartless World".

The photo of the bottles shows the wide variety of possibilities, including two "Glasgow" ale bottles, the cream-colored ceramic bottles that held imported ale from Britain. One finds these bottles (or their shards) by the hundreds.

The cliche of whiskey drinking fit a stereotype of the Wild West, which was easily exaggerated - the linked image is from the early 1860s for Harper's Weekly Magazine. it depicts the violence resulting from whiskey drinking, but in general, the saloons were quiet places (except the shooting gallery and saloon!) to enjoy a drink and a meal with friends. And the drinks were diverse.

Even the glassware that we retrieved shows that diversity: from beer mugs and whiskey tumblers to wine glasses and a wide variety of liqueur glasses](https://imgur.com/GH5hRn4), evidence exists of the spectrum of possibilities.

One must remember that the Pacific Coast had access to the international market place. Lines of trade linked the West to everywhere, and before the transcontinental railroad of 1869, it was sometimes easier to obtain a bottle of whiskey from Scotland than it was from Kentucky, but all things were possible.

Different saloons catered to specific clientele, and it did seem that the Hibernia, for example, had more whiskey and beer drinking than wine, when compared to other establishments. Piper's included a lot of wine and also what was apparently a foul tasting mineral water from Germany; the Boston Saloon seemed to have a lot of fine crystal liqueur glasses. Variations were not outstanding statistically, but the differences were there, so in answer to your question - it would depend on the establishment. But whatever your taste - in general or at a given moment - you could find it satisfied in a community that offered several saloons (Virginia City/Gold Hill boasted 100 saloons throughout the two decades of Bonanza from 1860-1880).

Let me know if I didn't hit the spot; I'll try to pour you some more if I failed!