Post #528036 by paranoid123 on Tue, May 4, 2010 8:30 PM

I have different thoughts on this subject. I do welcome the new reawakening of quality cocktails, but in some ways I'm a little sick of it. Not because I pine for the days of bottom shelf booze, freehand pours and commercial mixers - but (and this is perhaps it is because I live in Manhattan) probably because I'm tired of the snobbiness of it all. I'm on a lot of food/drink newsletters and there is a lot of new things opening (and closing) in New York every day, so every week I'm reading about a new bar armed with bartenders (and they won't call them bartenders, they are all "mixologists" or "bar chefs" or "alchemists" or whatever) with some kind of work pedigree that goes back to Sasha Petraske/Milk and Honey, and everyone has mustaches and suspenders or pharmacist coats, and you have to jump through some kind of hoop to get inside because it's a "speakeasy" of some sort. There will always be some gimmick to it. Yet it's still crowded as heck on a Tuesday night. Of course when you get inside drinks are no less than $15.

The funny thing is I look at the menu, and I realize I have about 75% of every named liquor in the ingredients of all the cocktails. So it's difficult to justify going out for a drink, when I can get sloshed at home for cheaper.

I just wish for a neighborhood bar that I can go and pay $7 for a drink, the bartender remembers you, and there isn't any pretense. It's not empty and it's not a dive, but just not full of loud douchebags. Oh wait, there WAS a place like that in NYC, it was Elettaria (during happy hour).