Make Mine a Double: Why Women Like Us Like to Drink (Or Not)

Against Mixology

41 sarah deming ฀ t Against Mixology when I walk into a SoHo gallery, I expect to be snubbed. One look at my shoe-handbag combo, and even the intern knows I can’t afford the art. At an alt rock show in Williamsburg, I am game for shame at the door. I’m not that young anymore, and all my piercings are hidden. Basically, if art is on the line, I’m okay with elitism. When it’s a question of sin, however—and no matter how much we dress up drinking or call it by a fancy name, it remains just that—judgment is absurd. People want their sin the way they want it. This is something every drug dealer and pornographer knows, so why can’t today’s upscale bartenders understand? To the so-called mixologists, I say: Pour up and shut up. The problems with mixology begin with the word itself: a clumsy cocktail of Latinate root and Greek suffix appropriated by a lunatic fringe within the bartending world. The word offends the ear and seems acceptable only after repetition. In fact, I’m sorry I’ve already used it so much; the healthy contempt you felt when you first read it is probably fading, just as an unpleasant odor will go away if you smell it long enough. In his 1948 essay “The Vocabulary of the Drinking Chamber ,” H. L. Mencken called the word “silly” and cited it as evidence of bartenders’ “meager neologistic powers.” It’s kind of sad to read this Mencken essay now. He obviously expected the word to die the quiet death it deserved, but for once in his life he was too optimistic. Not only did it survive, it bred. Modern drinking chambers resound with pretentious neologisms; if you want to learn some, just pick up an issue of Imbibe magazine. 42 t s a r a h d e m i n g “Edible cocktail” and “solid” are two of my favorites—both mean “Jell-O shot.” The insidious thing about words is that the act of decrying them promotes their usage. Mencken did just that: MerriamWebster ’s Collegiate Dictionary gives 1948 as the date of the first written use of “mixology.” If you have never encountered a mixologist in the wild, consider yourself blessed. Maybe you live in a nice college town where people still smile at each other in the streets. You patronize a clean, well-lighted place where someone called a bartender smiles, prepares your favorite beverage, and lets you drink in peace. Enjoy it while you can. One gray happy hour you will go to your clean, well-lighted place to find the windows boarded up, the address obscured by a skull and crossbones, and the name of the establishment changed to something like The Pharmacist’s Revenge. The horrible, sinking feeling in your stomach is called mixology. If you are thirsty enough, go inside. (I know it looks closed, but that’s just a trick to scare off customers.) Once your eyes adjust to the crepuscular gloom, you will be menaced by a beautiful hostess. Remain calm; you have every right to be there. Don’t let on how badly you want a drink, but act bored. This should be easy if you listen to the music being played now that the cool jukebox has been replaced by the mixologist’s iPod. You may now proceed slowly toward the bar, which is the large object in front of you made of zinc or tin, groaning beneath the weight of all the fruit infusions. Behind it stands the man whose sole purpose in life is to keep you from your drug of choice. He is probably a white male in his late twenties with a handlebar moustache, mutton chops, or pubo-Amish beard. He dresses like a member of a barbershop quartet. A frown hovers on his face as he surveys his vast collection of bitters. The worst mistake you could make at this point would be to wave a twenty. This will offend the mixologist’s dignity. Like a Against Mixology t 43 cat, the mixologist must acknowledge you in his own time, if he does so at all. Don’t snap his suspenders; he bites. That jewel-encrusted, leather-bound volume he is sliding in front of you is not The Complete Works of Shakespeare but the Seasonal Cocktail Menu. You now...