The relationship between women and drinking has always been a fraught subject in America, from colonial times to the recent rise of the "cocktail mom." Sarah Baird explores the long-held…
With its tropical climate and mishmash of cultures, New Orleans was practically predestined to become a tiki mecca. Sarah Baird tracks the city's tiki love affair, from its early heyday…
With its windowless bars, secret recipes and tropically dressed devotees, tiki culture's escapist mindset is not unlike that of science fiction's.
China's traditional grain spirit, baijiu, has evolved—mostly in obscurity—along a trajectory that has no Western equivalent. Derek Sandhaus travels to one of its most famous production zones to discover why…
Rising to kitschy prominence in the 1950s and '60s, the plastic swizzle stick quickly became the most ubiquitous piece of American bar memorabilia. By the '90s it was mostly forgotten.…
For 25 years, Robert Simonson has catalogued the vestiges of New York's bygone taprooms—from neon signs to murals to bar counters themselves—proving that many bars come and go, but some…
Not that long ago, the Negroni was considered a second-tier drink. But now that even small-town bars have mastered Martinis and Manhattans, lesser-known classics are making their way into the…
Once pre-refrigeration outposts for ice sales, South Texas's historic "icehouses" transitioned into bars and community centers in the '40s and '50s. Today, a handful remain in Houston as evolving bastions…
What the evolution of Champagne's drinking vessel—from coupe to flute to wine glass—says, not only about how the wine has changed, but how we, the drinkers, have changed.
The Old-Fashioned is one of America's oldest cocktails, but it's never felt more new. Robert Simonson offers a peek into the drink's past and modern rebirth.
