The sound is spreading around the globe. A rasping, crunching noise, like someone printing up a gravel path. It is a sound which had almost disappeared until recently, a black and white sound that triggered a vague memory of Hollywood movies and 1950s sitcoms, a sound made by clean-cut people enjoying each other’s company, or by uniformed bartenders who knew every customer’s secrets and never divulged their own. It is a sound of ice and spirits dancing together in a shaker to make a fantastical new product. It is a cocktail being born. Cocktails and cocktail bartending had almost died out in the 1970s and ‘80s. There were a few great hotels with top-class bartenders and a few young acolytes who kept the tradition alive in small, often private, clubs. Cocktails were still being made, but they had slipped from mass-market consciousness along with tailfins and Cadillacs. The three Martinis sipped over a long lunch had been replaced with three mineral waters and a plate of sushi. Thankfully fashion is a cyclical thing and at the height of the neo-Prohibitionist movement at the start of the 1990’s a new generation began to rebel. They spurned the health fascists, demanding red meat and strong alcohol, puffing on smuggled Cuban cigars, and quaffing red wine. This is -was- a generation who want flavour, prefer to relax in quality bars, and drink quality drinks. The sound of the shaker began to get louder once more.
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.