Drinks with the Neocons

In the spirit of bipartisanship, I reach far to my right to link for the first time ever to the The Weekly Standard, which offers a cover story on “The Cocktail Renaissance.” Writer Robert Messenger celebrates antique blends like the Gin Rickey and the Aviation, cuffs around such ‘90s innovations as the Smore’tini, and calls the Cosmopolitan “a gateway drug” for young women. He also nods in the direction of Chicago’s debonair cocktail house Violet Hour, which I wrote about last year for a GQ package on the nation’s best cocktails. Who would have thought I would have found so little to argue with? There is, come to think of it, something fundamentally conservative about the whole cocktail culture. But I’m not going to let that keep me from enjoying a summery Southside tonight.