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This chapter provides a brief social history of the Bowery as told through the transformation of its bars and nightlife. It first examines how bars and nightlife corresponded to and helped along the Bowery's eventual gentrification before discussing how new bars and contemporary nightlife development have shaped community life in downtown neighborhood bars. A vignette of the people at Milano's Bar, a bar that has evolved alongside the changes occurring in the Bowery and the nightlife scene, is presented. Through an analysis of its multiple generations of customers, its bartenders, and its owners, the chapter reveals the tensions that have arisen from the bar's own transformation as a refuge for the homeless to a public gathering place for residents to a “dive bar” for young visitors. The reactions of the people at Milano's to these changes illustrate how urban forces have shaped a fundamental aspect of life for people in these downtown neighborhoods, namely, community socializing.

In Courtship, a short story by Aaron Gwyn, Jansen, a bartender secretly in love with his best friend,Wisnat, a barber, agrees to help Wisnat seduce a woman by drugging her drinks, but the act brings with it unexpected consequences.

This chapter talks about how cocktail bartenders are most likely to respect, discuss, and debate the history of their craft and its culture, and recognize its importance in the work they do. Classic cocktail culture appears in their recipes and personal style, the motifs of their bars, and their professional identity. To them, the spread of craft cocktails throughout the nightlife industry and the rise of bartending to what they see as its rightful place as a respected trade are true revivals and rebirths. Cocktail bartenders build on and reshape the past, for their own livelihood and for a drinking public who want special bar experiences and crave a story behind their drink. Bringing their cocktail knowledge to bear on their service helps to elevate their work to an elite level.

This chapter explores how all bartenders, barbers, and butchers face a dilemma when someone first walks into their businesses. They do not know exactly what consumers want out of their experience, but they need to find out to do their jobs. Some retail workers, like cashiers, play a passive role in a consumer's shopping experience. And often these workers have a script, which their employer (such as a large corporation) mandates they follow. But bartenders, barbers, and butcher shop workers in general are far more interactive. They all come face-to-face with customers and clients, and the interaction influences what the consumer gets and how the experience goes.

This chapter examines how doing the job for workers in each of these occupations—bartenders, barbers, butchers—includes displaying confidence while performing tasks. Confident behavior serves as the ideal representation of the various elements in the cultural repertoires: the combination of technical, social, and communication skills, cultural knowledge that marks their specialized profession and industry, and a work ethic that guides their approach to the job. The code guides their practices and interactions in the workplace, and displaying confidence characterizes a successful skilled performance. In some cases people already possess elements of these repertoires before they first start working in the job, but rarely all of them.

This chapter describes the history of cocktails in America. From the earliest colonial days, Americans enjoyed combining other ingredients with their alcoholic beverages. Many mixtures were based on European—particularly English—traditions. The word “cock-tail,” describing a drink, first appeared in print in 1803. Many tales have been offered as to how the cocktail acquired its name but the only common thread among them was that it was an American invention. As bars became popular, a new profession emerged: the bartender. In 1862, Jerry Thomas, New York’s Metropolitan Hotel’s most prominent bartender, assembled a collection that was published as The Bar-Tender’s Guide; or How to Mix Drinks. The book would be reprinted many times under various names, with revisions and amplifications. Its recipes became the national standard for mixed drinks served in American saloons, hotel bars, restaurants, and homes. This was only the first in a long line of American cocktail manuals, and American cocktails would soon dominate the mixed drink world.