A drop of liquor before a play (5)
I believe the answer is:
drama
'a play' is the definition.
(I know that play can be written as drama)
'a drop of liquor before' is the wordplay.
'drop of liquor' becomes 'dram' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'before' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a' put after 'dram' is 'DRAMA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for drama that I've seen before include "Exciting series of events" , "Exciting event sequence" , "Plays as branch of literature" , "show of histrionics" , "Turbulent emotional episode" .)