Bar Stars

Once upon a time, few bartenders were known outside the places where they labored. The job had its perks, of course, especially if you had the better shifts, and good bartenders were often hired for their “following,” the customers who’d move with them from bar to bar.

But in many cases the job consisted mostly of grunt work - stocking beer, cutting fruit, counting bottles, gunning sodas, pouring carafes of wine - and mixing very few cocktails. In the dark days until the mid-1990s, Martinis, Manhattans and Old-Fashioneds were the few classics that a potential hire was required to know how to make. Depending on the decade, American drinkers mostly ordered Scotch and sodas, Screwdrivers, Sea Breezes, Wine Coolers and Frozen Margaritas. Not exactly challenging and certainly not very creative mixology....

(Read the entire story, below, first published in Cheers.)

Bar stars

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