Bar Notes

There are two kinds of people in this world, darling. People who understand that glassware matters, and people serving martinis in jelly jars. We do not judge them. We simply never invite them to dinner twice.

You can spend eighty dollars on bourbon, buy fresh citrus, and track down obscure amaro from Sicily, and still completely wreck the drink with bad ice. Ice is not decoration. Ice is an ingredient.

The Old Fashioned is one of the most abused cocktails in existence. Not because it's complicated. Quite the opposite — the recipe is painfully simple, which means there's nowhere to hide.

Nobody orders a Negroni the first time because it sounds safe. Then something strange happens. Six months later you order another one and suddenly your brain goes, 'Wait a second — this is incredible.' That shift is the entire story of modern cocktail culture.

There's a certain kind of man who walks into a pub, orders a Martini, and immediately tells you how James Bond drank it. That's usually how you know he's about to become exhausting.

A serious home bar is not built by wandering through Costco with ambition and poor judgment. That's how you end up with peach vodka, three bottles of things nobody can identify, and a cream liqueur aging like milk in the back of a cabinet.

Most people think tiki started with frozen drinks and bad decisions in souvenir cups. That's the cheap imitation version. Real tiki was never about sugar overload. It was about escape. Always has been.

The Mai Tai is perhaps the most misunderstood cocktail in existence. This is unfortunate because the Mai Tai is not merely a tiki drink — it is one of the great achievements in cocktail history.

If your drink takes longer to make than a commercial break, we've lost the plot. Game day is not the time for smoked cinnamon bark or Trevor explaining the history of vermouth while the Patriots are lining up on third-and-goal.

We asked all five bartenders which cocktail is most overrated. Theodore blamed the Espresso Martini. Vivian blamed the Cosmopolitan. Seamus blamed frozen drinks. Rumwell defended badly-made Mai Tais. Tommy blamed Trevor.