Impalers drinking Irish whiskey and brandy? (7)
I believe the answer is:
spirits
'whiskey and brandy?' is the definition.
(whiskey and brandy are alcoholic spirits)
'impalers drinking irish' is the wordplay.
'impalers' becomes 'spits' (a spit might impale bits of food).
'drinking' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are consumed or drunk).
'irish' becomes 'IR' (abbreviation).
'spits' going around 'ir' is 'SPIRITS'.
(Other definitions for spirits that I've seen before include "Animating forces or hard liquors" , "Hard liquor" , "Ghosts" , "eg Gin, whisky" , "Gin, vodka, rum etc" .)