It's 2012, and bartenders the world over are heaving sighs of relief after successfully surviving the mother of all nights out. I have been a bartender too long to hold much sentimentality for the champagne, horns, and streamers that comprise New Year's Eve, but it is a party, and someone has to throw it, so I spent this year the same way I've spent most others: slinging drinks and counting down to midnight. More
I was recently in a bar (naturally) talking cocktails with a bartender friend, and thinking back on the best drinks I'd had in 2011. Had there been some thread that tied them together? What were the big trends in drinks over the past year? What will we be drinking in 2012? More
Based on what's been happening as the aught decade (did we ever settle on what to call that?) draws to a close, here are six trends we might see in the next decade. More
It's only been a few months since William Grimes wrote of the popularity of speakeasy-style bars in the New York Times, but if the mixed reactions bars such as the Prohibition-themed Tavern Law in Seattle has received in local media are any indication, the intensely serious style of craft cocktail bars may be on the wane. More
A number of bartenders are getting into the chocolate game, making their own bitters, tinctures, and liqueurs that capture the rich character of chocolate without weighing down the drink's flavor with a palate-thumping load of sugar. More
