As a bar and spirits writer, it is perhaps unsurprising that Bar Tab was my favourite column in The New Yorker.
The small snippets of New York nightlife, culture, politics and gossip that dripped onto the page gave this Londoner almost enough of a taste of life in Manhattan to keep me satiated between trips across the Atlantic.
When the column quietly disappeared in November 2018 (it has since returned on a biweekly basis) I decided to write my own.
However, it was only when I re-read this interview with David Wondrich that I realised their other key virtue:
Most drinks writing and cocktail writing focuses very heavily on the bartenders these days, and almost none on the customers. It's always curious to see how the customers receive these things. What kind of people go to what bar, what the social scene is. That I would like to see chronicled a little better. There are people who do it, but it's not as common.
I mean, no customers, no bar, right? It's a social thing, social drinking. The social aspects I think are really interesting.
This is something Bar Tab excelled at. The drinks would usually get a mention, the bartender seldom did and the mood of the venue was nearly always captured through one sharp line the writer had ‘overheard’ (eavesdropped) from a drinker.
As a writing exercise, therefore, they require a little creativity, some sharp observational skills and a single critical thought, all tied up within a tight word count.
Consider these an homage then, as well as a guide to some of the most interesting bars around the world and more importantly, the people who drink in them...
“That's all we do, isn't it -- look at things and try new drinks?” - Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants
