The Cocktail Nation

American Demographics, July 1, 1998 by Marc Spiegler

Viewed from a "cool fusion" standpoint, Fay says, the mixing of healthy living with cocktail-sipping or cigar smoking makes perfect sense. "People are taking better care of themselves overall, but making exceptions to go all out on a special occasion or to reward themselves," he says. "And many doctors would probably agree that it's not so bad to indulge yourself once in a while, because what really counts is the day-to-day."

Ice Clinks. Dino's on the hi-fi. Every news organ in the western hemisphere has already run your story. 'Lounge Culture,' as the name suggests, never really goes anywhere. One day a federal death squad will hunt down and eliminate every loser with thick-rimmed glasses and a smoking jacket. Until then, however, there will be articles by overeager J-school trend spotters announcing the Cocktail Renaissance. -Spy, July/August 1997

Clearly, the numbers show that there is a market for the resurgent cocktail-steak-cigar troika. But what was once a way of life has been fetishized into a ritual, with trend journalists beating the drum. "This cocktail trend isn't a new lifestyle," says Rick Kogan, aka Dr. Nightlife. "It's more like people putting on their dad's old clothes for a night. I hate to blast the media, but every time you open a martini bar within five blocks of a newspaper, a trend is born." Granted, some of those martini bars will do quite well, especially the ones that really work the retro angle. (If it has not hit your town already, expect a return of swing dancing.)

But do not bank on the end of American health-consciousness. Because if anything seems clear, it is that the trend spotters read way too much into the Cocktail Nation's emergence, misjudging the underlying attitudes at play. What we've seen is just an appropriation of certain elements from the 1950s halcyon nightlife, not its wholesale return.

To Chicago's Doody, who has made his living off nightlife for two decades, what we're seeing is an evolution toward a more mature market, one that values sophistication over getting obliterated. "This is a whole new phenomenon, with nightlife going more toward a French-style appreciation of finer products," he says. "And that wasn't there in the Rat Pack heyday, when people were drinking Cutty Sark-and-soda and puffing nickel cigars."

Now, he says, the emphasis has turned toward more ritualistic settings, like the cigar room or cafe. There, the emphasis is on catching just enough of a buzz to get conversation flowing, but no more. As Madia's partner at the Blackbird restaurant, liquor connoisseur Ricky Diarmit puts it, "The 1950s were a beautiful time to be living, with guys rolling down the road in convertibles drinking martinis. Now, people aren't throwing everything to the wind the same way. There are more restraints. We'll never see those Sinatra and Dean Martin days again."

Taking It Further

The Alcohol Research Group conducts the National Alcohol Survey. It can be reached at 2000 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709; telephone (510) 642-5208. The American Lung Association tracks data on cigarette and cigar smoking. Contact the organization at 1740 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-4374; telephone (212) 315-8622. The National Cancer Institute recently released a comprehensive report on cigar smoking. Cigars: Health Effects and Trends is a 200-page monograph, available on the institute's Web site at http://www.nci.nih.gov/. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service maintains and updates data on tobacco use. See its tobacco briefing page at http://www.econ.ag.gov/Briefing/tobacco/. Wirthlin Worldwide conducts regular surveys on many topics. For more information on its June 1997 survey on nutrition attitudes, contact the company at 1363 Beverly Road, McLean, VA 22101; telephone (703) 556-0001. Data on per-capita food consumption are compiled annually by the USDA Economic Research Service. They are available on its Web site at htttp://www.econ.ag.gov. Roper Starch Worldwide, Inc., conducts a monthly survey of U.S. adults on many topics. For more information, contact the company at 205 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017; telephone (212) 599-0700.