The vermouth is in the fridge, the ice is big, and I have a dusty copy of The Gentleman’s Companion. Hello from a top-tier bartender in 2009. The bar was low then. I know it was low because I tripped over it. 

But then just a month ago, in 2024, I had a guest with such dewy skin he practically glowed with youthful light. He looked at me and said, “Do you have a clarified milk punch?” A 2009 version of him, back when I was a “top-tier bartender,” would have told me he was allergic to gin. If a 22-year-old is inquiring about clarified milk punch, what can a celebrity bartender offer anymore?

A star bartender of the early cocktail renaissance was someone who could execute a couple of tricks like a close-up magician, and maybe even grasp a third use for Chartreuse. I used to make pisco sours. I’d reach for an egg, and guests would gasp. Today, a celebrity bartender needs to choose which of the eight pisco grapes or blends thereof to use for their sour and which eye-catching riff on a classic will enchant “the ’gram.” A bartender can no longer gain recognition by being “first to market” with knowledge, appropriation, or performance of anything. Fermented mare’s milk (kumis) cocktails are already out there. So, go on, try to be weird, and see how far it gets you.

I should have started with an apology. I am sorry to the ensuing generations of bartenders. I am sorry I gobbled up credibility and attention for basically just showing up, and look at you, out here trying to milk a horse to get a retweet. But let’s slay an issue bigger than my guilty conscience. What makes a great bartender in the post-
celebrity era? Really, that wasn’t a rhetorical question.

It’s certainly not memorizing cocktails in a world of handheld supercomputers. But listening to guests and pairing the words they are saying with a cocktail is a skill. Bonus points for intuiting if a guest wants to be dazzled, challenged, or comforted—it’s uncommon for the same drink to do all three. There is no objective version of a perfect cocktail bar. There is only intention and whether a bar achieves the goals it has set out for itself. My favorite scotch bar has zero mezcals. It’s not a “speakeasy’s” job to make cocktails fast, and it’s not a tiki bar’s job to be subtle. 

Let’s not forget one of the simplest measures of a top-tier bartender, either: financial success. Bartenders who are savvy at business—pour costs, guest satisfaction, functioning toilets—tend to stick around. Any bar open for more than three years deserves a medal. But most of all, what I judge my peers on is who they helped bring up.

The celebrity bartender might be a thing of the past, but what about all the people they worked with? Are they still around, making things as easy for the next generation as it was for me? It’s difficult to judge one person’s influence, which is why I look at teams. The real top-tier bar folk are those who elevate others.

Our knees will get crunchy, our hearing will fade, and our backs will crumble. But there is much more impact in offering wisdom and making room than simply knowing what to do with clarified milk punch.  

Andrew Bohrer is an author, illustrator, and bartender with more than 20 years of experience in the spirits and hospitality industry.