Nitecaps

First you take a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes you.

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[rogerwilkerson]

Bacardi - 1967

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"A proper drink at the right time—is better than any other made thing at giving us the illusion, at least, that we’re getting what we want from life. A cat can gaze upon a king, as the proverb goes, and after a Sazerac cocktail or two, we’re all cats." –David Wondrich

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Patrons in a midtown Manhattan bar drink by candlelight following a power failure on Wednesday, July 13, 1977.

bygone_newyork

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The Drinker’s Dictionary  Benjamin Franklin’s 1737 list of euphemisms for drunkenness is poetry. 

An excerpt of personal favorites...

...He cuts his Capers, He’s been in the Cellar, He’s in his Cups, Non Compos, Cock’d, Curv’d, Cut, Chipper, Chickery, Loaded his Cart, He’s been too free with the Creature, Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap...

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Is it any wonder that mankind stands open-mouthed before the bartender, considering the mysteries and marvels of an art that borders on magic?

Tom Bullock | The Ideal Bartender

[acocktailmoment]

Sidecar !

Mix 60 ml of cognac, 30 ml of Cointreau, half of a juiced lemon in a shaker full of ice, strain it into an elegant cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon or orange twist and you got yourself a classic.

This article was not sponsored or supported by a third-party. A Cocktail Moment is not affiliated with any individuals or companies depicted here.

[preservationsocietychicago]

A young Sophia Loren mixing up her own Negroni Sbagliato.

[etsy]

From ice advice to artisanal bitters — and all the gorgeous vintage glassware you can handle — here’s our guide to finding and outfitting a bar cart worth toasting to.

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7 Ways to Enjoy Campari

[bigcountryeric]

A Hemingway Daiquiri after work is never a bad choice 

[lucyamila]

Cocktails at the Tin Roof. San Diego, CA 

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I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar--that's wonderful.

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

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Warday Recipe | Stockade Tavern via AllNorth The Warday is a beautiful lost classic from “The Savoy Cocktail Book”. A perfect cold weather sipper: fall fruit start, crisp gin in the middle, with a light herbal finish. Cheers! Ingredients: 1 oz Plymouth gin 1 oz calvados 1 oz carpano antica (rich sweet vermouth) 1 tbsp green chartreuse Instuctions: Stir with ice / strain / serve up Caption by Jenny Vis, Co-owner of The Stockade Tavern Photo by Jen Brister

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Consider the Bartender

Tom Chiarella's fantastic profile of Jeff Magill, bartender at Chicago's famous Billy Goat Tavern. 

He shrugs. “Maybe I’m not the best bartender, not the best mixologist, not the best presence behind the bar, and that may be the why of how I got here. But I don’t know if I believe that being a great bartender is simply a matter of principles of service, standards, or what you might call a craft. I’m of a mind that there is a kind of work that goes on here. I think that the guy at the end of the bar, staring into his beer, is working through some stuff. And so you have to create a place where that can happen. People come here for a reason. A bartender serves that. You want people to get to the point they can find examples of joy.”

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Hemingway and the Cocktail

Over the years Hemingway drank pretty much anything and everything, and so did the characters of his novels. In fact it would be easily possible to write an entire bar tending guide just from the descriptions in his novels.

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Kingsley Amis on how to cure a metaphysical hangover:

"When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover. You are not sickening for anything, you have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a s**t you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is and there is no use crying over spilt milk."

Photo: Terence Donovan Archive/Getty

Via Austin Kleon