When most people think about cocktail culture in America, they think it really got started during Prohibition. Truthfully, prohibition was The Empire Strikes Back for Mixologists, they went underground, the good ones anyway. Men with families, who didn’t or couldn’t be part of the illegal liquor trade. Only now, with the rediscovery of traditional artistry and technique in Mixology, can we appreciate and rediscover what we’ve lost.
It’s easy to write about the golden age, about the giant Victorian style bars, massive tanks of mahogany wood tops and tiger striped oak fronts, staffed by white jacketed men who were capable of making you…anything you wanted. The were separate entrances for men and for women (the vestiges of this trend continued in Philly until the 70s), because the bar was a place for men, and women sat at tables. The sense of Victorian gentility and respect, that accompanied this stirs the romantic even as it irks the feminist. Everything was fresh, nothing was frozen or artificial. And the ice! Maybe the factor that most makes cocktails so distinctly American. The massive, fetishistic amount of ice: mashed, hammered, cut, and sliced from blocks in an indulgent celebration of the power of transportation and industry.
It’s easy to write about. But it’s nothing like seeing it with your own eyes.
In pursuit of that past, I went to the Architectural Antiques Exchange, minutes away from my place in Northern Liberties. Hipster culture, and it’s obsession with authenticity is often vilified for being, well, inauthentic. But I can’t think of a more fitting place for the Exchange than the hipster haven of Northern Liberties.
I sat down with Mark Charry, the proprietor, in the industry for over 30 years, to find out a little more.
The Golden Age of bars, was at it’s strongest at the turn of the century at the Victorian Era. This was a time, when the quality of craftsmen, the saloon culture, and the refinement of the bar all combined to reach a level that today approaches the surreal.
This is an old bar in the Victorian Style
The bars frequently had a Mahogany top with an oak base. In this particular bar, no expense was spared, and a tiger striped pattern of oak was used. In saloons, general stores, and ice cream shops, these kinds of bars displayed quality. The Victorian extravagance, the attention to detail, the sense that money was spend-even wasted-was a huge part of their appeal.
The Attention to Detail in the Styling was unbelievable, as in this back bar.
And this register.
Copper Taps
Franco-Belgian style taps
It wasn’t perfect…
Philadelphia’s skid row used to be on 8th and Vine, and the bums would sleep in Franklin’s square park. When the Old City area started to gentrify, they moved to the Northern Liberties area, becoming tennant/squatters at bars like liberties, distributing circulars by day, drinking by night, and putting up their veterans and social security checks as “rent.” This seems cruel by today’s standards, but we didn’t have the social infrastructure in place to support these people back then. Bars provided a necessary service.
What happened to the Golden Age?
Prohibition- The illegality of alcohol caused many woodworkers who specialized in the saloon trade to lose their jobs. Just as higher class Mixologists went underground, the woodworking trade, never one to support economies of scale to begin with, with bars made to order for specific customers, couldn’t survive the shift.
City Flight- Philadelphia used to have 2 million people in 1950, when many of these style saloons still thrived. Now it’s 1.5 Million. The big reason for this is Philly’s loss of industry. We used to lead the country in Ice Cream and Confections, Stetson (the famous cowboy hats originated in Philly), and the garment and furniture industries all lost their presence in Philadelphia, and people migrated.
Unionization- Unions, originally set up to protect workers from the rising inhuman conditions resulting from standardized labor, had an unintentionally catastrophic effect on the woodworking trade. Jurisdictions that would protect autoworkers from being exploited, were terrible for these smaller craftsmen whose trade required such artistry.
Culture- The drinking culture, for better or worse, where the saloon was the sanctum of men and the sporting life, began to ebb away. It was no longer socially acceptable to drink after work consistently etc.
Go go bars- Not what you think! This term also applies to bars set up in a circle, with a central bar in the middle, used to maximize the space and serve more customers. These new bars, especially in nightclubs and…Gentlemen’s clubs, began to overtake the old.
Changing Styles- Changing styles played a part too. Art Deco in the 30s, with it’s simple streamlined look, and later on Modern art or art moderne in the 50s. The Victorian style did come back in the late 60s, and people showed a renewed interest in these types of bars. Stephen Starr and Jose Garces will, in about 1 of 3 of their new restaurants, throw in traditional elements like these. Parc in Rittenhouse Square (link below), is a perfect example. It’s designed to look like it’s been there forever.
In the Mid 80s, restaurants slowed down, and private investors, who fell in love with these traditional bars became the choice clients, with bars such as the one below getting resized to fit traditional houses
Newer bar, everything from the top to the punch bowl is a reenactment of the old style, resized to fit a house.
The side entrance, same bar.
A “remix” of old an new. The wood is old, but the tiles were added in the last 20 years or so.
Completely new bar materials, but in the old style.
The level of respect afforded to bars back then, the expense and time put into these bars, was shocking to me, with my feet firmly planted in the IKEA age. I continue to be excited at the use of fresh ingredients in bars, in higher training for Mixologists (a term more than 150 years old at this point), and the return to the standard of quality of old.
But this time, the women can sit at the bar too :).
Links:
http://www.architecturalantiques.com/
Parc Restaurant:
http://www.parc-restaurant.com/
