It was high summer, 4:32 PM on a Thursday afternoon. I was wearing a pretty summer dress. And I was sitting at a bar, intent on having a drink to soothe my nerves.
There was a small fashion show going on down on the lower deck, which I was not only in charge of pulling together but also modeling in. It was a hectic process, full of arranging clothes and giving instructions and reigning in. I had a long day behind me and a long night ahead of me, not only because of the headache of transporting 36 complete outfits from one venue to another, but also because the later evening promised a rather difficult and tedious conversation.
I decided I needed a drink. Scratch that. I decided I’d damn well earned one.
The bartender, a very cute metrosexual who I’ll call David, asked me what I wanted. I shrugged and did a little non-committal mambo in my seat; something that tasted good, I hemmed, but nothing too sweet.
He smiled and picked up a bottle. He said, with confidence, that he knew just the thing.
While he set about the impressively elaborate task of preparing this unknown drink, we made conversation as he went (discussing, among other things, the virtues of taking extended shopping trips to other cities, and the tacit wonders of stop-action animation). He said it was his specialty, and he’d picked the technique up on a trip to Cuba; one sip and I was inclined to believe him. He made me many more drinks that evening, each different from the next. And damn, if he didn’t always know exactly what my taste buds craved (I never did get the name of the drink).
Why do I bring this up? Well, this is all to preface an article in the latest Atlantic Monthly-- a piece about the triumphant return of the cocktail (insert ellipsis/question mark here). It details a new bar in Boston –called Drink—which treats their bartenders as pharmacists who diagnose the desire of their patrons’ taste buds. Cute, sure; gimmicky, maybe. But most of all, a refreshing change to the way drinks are being ordered: quickly, without fuss, and plucked from a standard menu. And apparently, part of a modestly growing trend.
In my mind, this is nothing but a good, if not great, thing. Bars have transformed into little more than theme parks for bad adult behaviors, acting more like non-stop booze fountains than the leisurely banquets of imbibing they could be. That’s lame. That misses the whole point of drinking: it’s fun AND it’s sophisticated. It’s not a marathon to see who falls off their barstool first.
Cocktails, too, have suffered. A leftover from the days of acerbic, near-undrinkable bootleg alcohol, the cocktail itself was only really invented to mask the disgusting taste of bathtub gin. Nowadays, they’re still hiding the taste of the alcohol.
If this growing trend of putting the drink, rather than the drinking, front and center again continues, I’m pretty sure we’ll all magically return to the glittering banter and perfect coiffures of The Thin Man and its ilk. That would be outstanding. I already have, like, half the outfits. The sparkling conversations that just happen around a collection of moderately sipped cocktail glasses are the bread and butter of 1930s talky-talk pictures. THAT IS THE ONLY NOURISHMENT I NEED OR WANT.
And let’s face it, that’s all I really want out of life, anyway: to be a character in an Irene Dunne film. Hell, I’d settle for being a costume change in an Irene Dunne film. I secretly like to believe the ghost of Cary Grant hovers around every well-made gin martini. So maybe if we start drinking properly again, those days will magically be reborn. Yeah, that’s how it goes, isn’t it? If you build it, they will come, and all that jazz? I hardly think Kevin Costner became America’s Sweetheart by lying to everyone’s face, after all. If you drink it, they will hobknob.
Bottom line: that midsummer night’s drink I had turned out to less of a refreshment and more of an experience. And isn’t that what a cocktail should be? You go out to have a drink; it’s an occasion, however minor and commonplace. As such, it should have a little ceremony of sorts attached to it. However gimmicky. I happen to think our world could use a little more gimmick.
Oh, and it didn’t hurt that first drink was on the house—compliments of that charming bartender. That was a cute touch.
Read it: Old-Fashioned [The Atlantic Monthly]
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