New Yorker

On this day in 1925, The New Yorker published its first issue. 

When I think of the The New Yorker, I think of New York in the 50's and 60's, of all the great writers that wrote in that heyday; Dylan Thomas, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, and a host of others. I think of enjoying the stories, the reviews, the articles written about New York by New Yorkers.  The magazine, as did our culture at the time, had a definite slant towards imbibing and many of the articles were a how to, bringing to a near art form the simple act of drinking in bars.

Not Clubs or Niteclubs, but bars - bars that in order to make an even greater assertion of their purpose had the word bar in their name.  Like the Bar at Bull and Bear, the Oak Bar, the King Cole Bar.  Bars with bartenders wearing crisp white shirts, black aprons and bow ties and that made their cocktails from scratch and placed them perfectly garnished on that long expanse of dark, rich, shiny oak.
 
I also think of those wonderful cartoons, one patron has a Martini in front of him, the other, perhaps a Manhattan.  One patron says to the other...

But that's just me.
 

    The Historical Inebriant:  The Manhattan
     http://www.esquire.com/drinks/manhattan-drink-recipe