About Cocktail Snob
 

October, 2007
v1.1

Between the years 1995 and 2006, I was intensely involved in researching, preserving, cataloging, and raising awareness of the vintage Polynesian Pop (or Tiki) movement that lasted from 1934 to about 1970. During my period of research, I visited many, many bars and restaurants.  My primary criteria when writing about these locations was in exploring and emphasizing their historical significance within the Tiki idiom.  Just as important as the food and drink, was the level to which the customer was immersed in an "urban savage" fantasy while patronizing these palaces of pretend paradise.  In 1995, I launched the Tiki Bar Review Pages web site, which contained information about my ongoing Tiki explorations in the 1990s.  That site was spun off into the book Tiki Road Trip in 2003 (with a revised second edition in 2007). In the early years, I was happy with any old Zombie or Suffering Bastard that would induce a stupor.  But after visiting many dozens of Tiki bars, and imbibing hundreds of sweet, sticky, drinks that seemed to be full of nothing but rail-quality rum and high fructose corn syrup, my appreciation for places that made truly good drinks began to increase exponentially.  The very best Tiki bars can make some damn fine drinks, but those establishments are the exception, not the rule.  After having personally discovered, cataloged, and visited literally every single one of the important remaining vintage Tiki establishments, I am tired of crappy beverages, and am no longer willing to accept them.  My horizons expanded dramatically as I grew beyond the familiar territory of so-called Tropical drinks, and discovered the larger realm of classic cocktails in general. While exploring these new (old) frontiers, I was astounded to discover that getting a good cocktail - period - is just as hard to do within the wide, wide realm of general drinking establishments as getting a decent Zombie is within the Tiki realm.  Thus my new quest: finding the very best places to get served by an expert in mixology, regardless of the genre of the place in which these drinks are being mixed. And so it is, that the cocktail snob was born! With the Cocktail Snob web site, I am using the same game plan I used in the Tiki days, but with a fresh subject matter.  I plan to cataloge my cocktail research on this site, and as soon as enough information accrues, I will develop it into a book project.

On this web site, you'll find my reviews of places where excellent drinks can be found.  I will also include selected additional places that I like to visit, but that may not (nesscesarily) have super great drinks.  These will usually be found tacked to the end of the primary reviews.

Please note that I am not a professional bartender nor a bar owner.

I do not aspire to be either.

My goals are not to become Audrey Saunders, Adam Seger, Dale Degroff, Ted Haigh, Toby Maloney,  or Julie Reiner - although I do know a lot of these people, I admire all of their work, and I think of a few of them as friends.

What I do want to accomplish is the same thing I accomplished with Tiki Road Trip - to gather in one place a resource where people can discover the good work that these mixologists are doing, and to make my findings available as a guide for people who want to hightail it to the places where a great highball is being served.  This site is a travel guide, pointing you towards people who are doing things that are - in my own humble estimation and based on my own empirical knowledge - doing it right. 

There are a lot of sites out there by and for bartenders.
There are a lot of sites out there full of bar recipes.
This site is for the bar customer, as well as for the bar snob - a term we use with a tongue in the cheek, a term that we use for someone who has high standards, who demands quality, who appriciates the finer things, but who also remembers that all of this should just be for fun, and not taken too seriously. 
We are talking about booze after all, and is all just recreation in the end.

There are also a lot of web sites out there that are chock full of bar reviews, but I feel that having hundreds of bars or restaurants reviewed on these sites actually diminishes the impact of spotlighting the really great ones.  Since spotlighting excellence is my goal, my reviews will be selective.  

I also believe that by keeping all of the reviews the work of one voice (mine in this case!) that things will remain more or less consistent.  If you have read a few of my reviews and then decide to visit some of the places discussed on these pages, hopefully you'll get a sense of how my personal perspective on all of this jibes with your own, and will then be able to adapt all of my future reviews to your own criteria.  This sort of thing gets lost when too many voices are all contributing to one review site.

That said, I do have a few (very few) selected field agents from whom I will start to post reviews as appropriate.  These are all people whom I have known for years, and whose perspective on all matters cocktail are closely aligned with mine.  If I trust them, then trust me - you can trust them!

I welcome your comments, and your suggestions of places worth visiting.

Tydirium Multimedia Left Orbit Temple Tiki Road Trip Big Stone Head Send e-mail to James Last updated on October 23, 2007

All material on this website is © Copyright 1994-2009 by James A. Teitelbaum. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use is a violation of applicable laws.

"Tiki Bar Review Pages", "Tiki Road Trip", "Tydirium Multimedia",  "Left Orbit Temple",  "Chester Century", "Big Stone Head",  "TiPSY Factor", "Johnny Clash", "Tiki TV", "Cocktail Snob",  and  "Blue Harvest Magazine" are trademarks of James A. Teitelbaum.