by Jim Clarke
At the end of the 19th century
the bartender was a respected figure around America. Many
gained national reputations and moved from city to city across
the U.S., gracing various bars with their craft while learning
and embellishing each region's local cocktails. In some cases
their names have actually come down to us: Jerry Thomas and
Harry Johnson, for example, were rivals: two acknowledged
masters in a trade that required an apprenticeship of several
years. Bartenders at the time not only knew the differences
among various sorts of bourbons, gins, and myriad other liquors,
they also mixed their own bitters, sour mixes, and other essential
blending ingredients. Some of our classic cocktails come from
these artists.
It's hard to say when this sense of craft
faded. It survived Prohibition; given the quality of the period's
bathtub gin, hiding its rough edges inside a cocktail glass
must have demanded some attention and skill. Fancy cocktails
were perhaps too bourgeois and snobbish for the socially-active
youth of the 60s, making for a period of decline. Only in
the late 80s did cocktails and their makers reemerge on the
scene. The latter were graced with a new name, as the title
"bartender" had become a debased currency: mixologist.
 So
for the past couple of decades, mixologists have been making
drinks for us. And creating new drinks, combining liquors,
juices, and garnishes with abandon. Some would argue that
their success rate has been mixed, but their enthusiasm can't
be denied. Only a few of the newer cocktails are demonstrating
much staying-power: some have mistaken the Cosmopolitan for
a new invention, but it's actually a resurrection from the
1950s. Nevertheless, the mixologist has brought a new spotlight
to the cocktail.
Now a new title - and with it, a new attitude
- has appeared: the bar chef. As the chef is to a line cook,
so is the bar chef to today's bartender. The bartender learns
the recipes and knows the proportions of their drinks, but
the bar chef knows why the recipe works. A guest may order
a martini made with a number of different gins or vodkas;
the bar chef knows the subtle differences between the various
brands and, in his or her own cocktails, takes them into account.
Eben Klemm of B.R. Guest in New York feels
that a change of venue has opened new doors for cocktails:
"Up until the last ten years the tradition of drink invention
was driven by bars and saloons; the recent innovations are
coming in restaurants. That's a big change because now you
have more direct contact between the kitchen and the bar."
In fact, the bar chef is raiding the pantry for new or obscure
ingredients: lemongrass, maraschino liqueur, truffles - all
are fair game to today's cocktail creators. And like a chef,
an awareness of balance between different flavors plays an
important part in preparing a new cocktail.
What really puts bar chefs on solid ground
may be a sense of history. Many are not just creating their
new cocktails, they're trying to offer perfect renditions
of older cocktails as well. Dylan Prime's Michael Waterhouse
sums it up: "We're concentrating on making the cocktails
better now." Try a margarita with fresh sour mix and
squeezed limes instead of a mix from a soda gun and you'll
see how big a difference it can make. Some are gracing their
drink menus with revivals of older cocktails: the Singapore
Sling, the Aviation, and the Vesper have all been featured
around New York of late. This sense of what has come before
keeps bar chefs grounded and brings a pride of tradition to
their work. Eben says, "There's plenty of old cocktails
that deserve to be forgotten, but there's at least 50 cocktails
over 50 years old that we're not drinking but should be."
Restaurant guests are responding strongly;
Michael says that at least once a night one of his menus goes
missing, spirited away by an enthusiastic guest. New York
is the cocktail hotbed at the moment; people like Eben, Michael,
Audrey Saunders at Bemelman's Bar in The Carlyle Hotel, and
Albert Trummer at Town all embody the idea of the bar chef,
whatever their official title. Check out some of their cocktails
along with drinks from other hot bar chefs around the country
in some our features below, including the StarChefs Sylk Rising
Stars Brian Kimmet from Dolce Enoteca e Ristorante in Hollywood
and Joel Finsel from the bar Astral Plane in Philadelphia:
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