"Back when cocktails were cocktails, son..."

Yep. Back in the good old days...
Days I never had the pleasure to know, when there was an honest glory to the cocktail hour.

Unlike today's "Happy Hour" where cheap drinks or watery beers are offered at discount specials to harried workers who believe the only thing the drink in their hand is good for is to help them forget their day.
I want to be a part of the Cocktailian Culture. A new brand of alcohol imbibers who appreciate fine ingredients, proper glassware and the art of the presentation.

I found out about this seductive subculture last fall when searching for an old moonshine recipe from the days of Prohibition.
Since then, I have become an eager student, reading about the most indispensable part of a true cocktail- that I have never used...
joining a secret society of absinthe drinkers, and reminiscing on my own cocktail-laden youth when I stood at my Daddy's side learning how to mix his six o'clock Perfect Manhattan.
Which this guy does so much better:

Nirvino Presents: The Uptown Manhattan from Nirvino on Vimeo.

Part of it, for me, is the entertainment portion of the cocktail show... the way it looks in the glass, the way the sexy barman puts it together and slides it across the bar to me, the camaraderie of us on the other side of the bar.. the way the glass feels in my hand, how I can appreciate the unique combination in The Home Stretch or a Cora Middleton.
God, the names alone slay me.
I think I would have been the perfect jazz loving bar floosie back in the day... back when a cocktail was a cocktail, son.

According to Esquire mag: these are the best bars in America.
Oddly enough, I am not at all surprised to see I was born less than 15 miles from the #1 bar.