Abstract
Focusing on the differences between the devices and dispositions of cocktail and neighborhood bartenders, this article examines how service industry jobs become cultural intermediaries. Unlike other types of bartenders, cocktail bartenders engage in forms of professionalization to make legitimacy claims and use interactive service work to add value to their products. They possess autonomy and exclusivity over their work in the sense that they control the conditions of entry and legitimacy for a niche within the drinks industry. The conditions that construct this niche are the same that allow bartenders to emerge as cultural intermediaries. They simultaneously bridge and extend the divide between production and consumption. A comparison between the attitudes (dispositions) and practices (devices) that bartenders use to add value to their products and services illuminates the distinctions between positions in this service profession and reveals the selective manner in which cultural intermediaries emerge in contemporary service industries.
Introduction
With the expansion of service industries in post-industrial economies (Lash and Urry, 1987, 1994), many scholars have turned their attention to cultural intermediaries (Bourdieu, 1984; Featherstone, 1991) or occupations that mediate between the production and consumption of cultural goods and services. Through varying forms of mediation, cultural intermediaries influence the presentation and representation of goods and services, add value to products and shape the tastes of consumers. Research on cultural intermediaries has focused mostly on occupations within traditional cultural industries, such as music industry executives (Negus, 1995), advertising practitioners (Cronin, 2004; McFall, 2002), magazine publishers (Nixon and Crewe, 2004) and fashion designers (Skov, 2002). In general, these studies argue that cultural intermediaries are different from other types of work, and that workers in these occupations see themselves differently from others (Wright, 2005). However, how cultural intermediaries emerge from non-traditional cultural industries, and the ways in which they are distinct from other occupations, have been under-explored. In addition, focusing on particular occupations as cases of cultural intermediaries does not show us how their larger industries are occupationally differentiated (Smith Maguire and Matthews, 2010).
Based on ethnographic data collected on two different types of bartenders, this article provides an empirically grounded examination of the attitudes and practices of workers within the same service industry. Both cocktail bartenders and neighborhood bartenders use interpersonal skills to add value to the products that they sell. However, cocktail bartenders are cultural intermediaries because they use cultural knowledge obtained from their community and lifestyles to engage in interactive service work that matches customers with the ‘right’ drink and educates them on their own tastes. On the other hand, neighborhood bartenders neither possess specialized knowledge of the products they sell, nor use their lifestyles and self-identities for practices of mediation. The value they add is based solely on their social skills. The conditions of autonomy in and exclusivity over their work allows cocktail bartenders to emerge as a cultural intermediary and construct a niche within the drinks industry. Thus, cocktail bartenders simultaneously narrow and widen the gap between production and consumption (Negus, 2002). An examination of the ‘devices and dispositions’ (du Gay, 2004a) or the ‘objective practices’ and ‘subjective outlooks’ that characterize work and workers (Smith Maguire and Matthews, 2010) of cocktail and neighborhood bartenders reveals how workers occupy different positions within the same industry, and how cultural intermediaries emerge within service industries.
Service jobs as cultural intermediaries
Scholars who study cultural intermediaries have focused mostly on cultural workers and workers in cultural industries. However, in his original formulation of the concept, Bourdieu (1984) sees cultural intermediaries as ‘all the occupations involving presentation and presentation … in all institutions providing goods and services … and in cultural production and organization’ (1984: 359). This broad definition includes the retail sector and the retail store, where workers mediate between production and consumption, produce cultural value and present and represent goods and services for consumers through direct, face-to-face interaction.
Several scholars have looked at the importance of retail work in mediating between production and consumption. Pettinger (2004) argues that different types of fashion stores influence the work done by their sales assistants to promote their brands and products. Stores get workers to engage in particular forms of service and to embody the aesthetics of their brands by wearing their products while working. However, while Pettinger demonstrates through observation how workers use these practices to add value to the store’s brand at the point of mediation, we do not learn about the meanings that workers attach to their jobs, or how they influence the decisions and tastes of consumers. Wright (2005) makes a more direct connection between retail service work and the work of cultural intermediaries. He shows how bookshop workers understand themselves to be cultural workers and different from other types of retail occupations because they see books as special products, and their work as the mediation between their own love and knowledge of books and the needs of consumers. However, we do not learn how retail bookshop workers are differentiated within the bookselling industry in terms of attitudes or practices. In other words, what distinguishes cultural intermediaries from service jobs within retail industries?
Bartending is a service occupation that works directly for the retail store of the bar and indirectly with the drinks industry. Traditional understandings of bartending treat it as a low-status form of manual labor (Sennett and Cobb, 1972). Contemporary studies on urban nightlife show that bartenders have become key actors, as bars have become important spaces in the revitalization of neighborhoods and downtowns (Grazian, 2003, 2008). In his study on a gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago, Lloyd (2006) shows how young bartenders use ‘nocturnal cultural capital’ to help create a hip artists’ scene. However, shifts in the drinks industry have made bars and bartenders significant mediators between production and consumption. Along with producing a ‘scene’, bartenders today are responsible for creating value for the products that they sell. As with other service industries in post-industrial economies, the drinks industry has become highly aestheticized (Featherstone, 1991; Lash and Urry, 1994) and, along with food, alcoholic beverages are an important means by which people obtain distinction (Johnston and Baumann, 2010). Large alcohol companies diversify their products as smaller companies have emerged to challenge them (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000). As images and brands have become central to sales, liquor companies have come to rely on bartenders to help market their products. In this business environment, cocktail bartenders have emerged as a unique type of bartender that demonstrates the characteristics of cultural intermediaries and cultural workers. While not directly employed by the drinks industry, they still aim to sell its products to consumers. Communicating the unique qualities and flavor profiles of alcoholic products to customers benefits liquor companies, bartenders and their bars.
Professionalization represents a process by which occupations combine a set of values and norms with esoteric knowledge to handle particular cases (Abbott, 1988). They acquire these dispositions and status through systems of instruction and processes of credentialization, which grant them autonomy over their field. Professionalization for cocktail bartenders means learning how to prepare handmade cocktails by using specific techniques and ingredients. While much of this learning is done independently or through working relationships within bars, the cocktail community gradually has developed its own educational and accreditation programmes to train new members. Through training, studying specific texts and learning from peers within the bartending community, cocktail bartenders acquire a set of shared values and norms that define quality in a drink and guide their approach to service (Ocejo, 2010; Smith Maguire, 2008). Based on their professionalization, cocktail bartenders self-identify as bartenders who see this work as a career and distinguish themselves from other types of bartenders.
Unlike other examples of service work, retail service work entails direct interaction between workers and consumers. Pettinger (2004) shows that while some retail stores use more passive self-service and routine forms of service, higher-end stores use personal service strategies and train their workers to embody the values of the brands that they sell through their dress and in their own attitudes towards consumption (also see du Gay, 2004b). Cocktail bartenders engage in interactive service work to match customers directly with the ‘right’ drink for them. Through face-to-face interaction at the bar, cocktail bartenders first collect data on customers’ tastes. They then use their cultural knowledge to find this drink. In doing so, cocktail bartenders often convey their shared values of quality spirits and cocktails and educate customers about certain products, ingredients and flavor combinations.
Cultural knowledge obtained through professionalization and the practice of interactive service work represent the ‘devices and dispositions’ (du Gay, 2004a) that cocktail bartenders use to add symbolic value to the products that they sell. They learn these devices and dispositions from the people and texts of the cocktail community. The cocktail community represents a ‘taste community’ (Ferguson, 1998), or a group defined by its shared values and affinity for specific products. Its members produce the symbols and cultural knowledge that are associated with them. Given their rarefied and highly aestheticized nature, contemporary cocktails are products of ‘restricted production’ (Bourdieu, 1993). They come from a cultural field whose members control the means of entry and definitions over their own work. As Negus (2002) explains, ‘entry into these occupations is usually via networks of connections, shared values and common life experiences’ (2002: 511). In other words, cocktail bartending is cultural work that is characterized by exclusivity in terms of membership and autonomy over legitimatizing the tasks that are done, the values that are adhered to and the norms that are followed.
However, not all service work in retail industries entails cultural work, in the traditional definition of the cultural intermediary concept. The vast majority of bartenders do not use cultural knowledge of their products to mediate between production and consumption, neither do they directly engage in the presentation and representation of the goods that they sell. Nonetheless, they still produce meaning at the point of mediation. The case of neighborhood bartenders demonstrates that economic exchanges in the retail space of the bar entail the production of social value through interpersonal engagement with customers and emotional management (Hochschild, 1983). Both types of bartenders are like other types of retail service work in the sense that they engage in the basic tasks of ‘tending the bar’ (e.g. cleaning, stocking, working the cash register, counting change), but their distinctions derive from the different attitudes that they have about their work, and the practices they use to add value to their products.
Method
Data collection
This article is based on extensive ethnographic research conducted at three bars in New York City. From February 2004 to June 2006 I studied the social worlds of Martino’s Bar on the gentrified Lower East Side of New York, one of Manhattan’s premier destinations for nightlife. 1 Martino’s used to be a hangout for homeless men and transformed into a bar for the young newcomers who moved to the neighborhood in the 1980s and 1990s. The bartenders and regular customers consider Martino’s to be a ‘home territory bar’ (Cavan, 1966) and a ‘third place’ (Oldenburg, 1989): an informal public gathering place that serves as a second home and fosters a sense of community. However, given its location in a popular neighborhood for nightlife and its reputation as an old, gritty bar, many people visit it casually, particularly on nights and weekends. I refer to it throughout this article as a ‘neighborhood bar’ because of its longtime appeal for local residents and its strong group of regulars.
I also conducted ethnographic research at two cocktail bars – Red Church and Warsaw (opened in 2000 and 2006, respectively) – from February 2007 to July 2010. Also located on the Lower East Side, cocktail bars such as these two occupy a unique niche of consumption spaces that offer highly aestheticized products within the city’s larger night-time economy. I selected them because of their significance as sites for creativity and innovation in the cocktail world, and as hubs for socializing among members of the cocktail community. They form part of a network of cocktail bars in the city, their bartenders and owners being key members of a cocktail community that is global in scope and includes members of the spirits industry, lifestyle media and educated consumers. I also regularly attended the cocktail community’s frequent events and conferences.
Ethnographic data collection consisted of participant observation. During the research periods I went to each bar often (nearly every day at Martino’s and at least one cocktail bar per week) and became a ‘regular’ customer. As a well-educated, middle-class male in my late twenties, I was able to blend in quite easily with the crowds at the cocktail bars as well as with the city’s cocktail bartending community, both of which are similar demographically. Although younger, I became a member of the community of regulars at Martino’s and a customer whom bartenders trusted. I used a small notebook to record my observations, conversations and informal interviews with bartenders and customers. Longer interactions were recorded in the restroom, with notes recorded later in the evening or the next morning. I consumed alcohol in every bar in small quantities and at a slow, deliberate pace. In fact, drinks were indispensible for initiating conversations with both cocktail bartenders and customers. The field work conducted at both bars was originally part of a larger research project on the Lower East Side’s nightlife scene.
Procedure and participants
To supplement this ethnographic data I conducted semi-structured interviews with the six bartenders who worked at Martino’s during this research period, as well as both of its owners. I also interviewed 24 cocktail bartenders from these two as well as other cocktail bars in New York City, including their owners. I used a convenience sample in the case of cocktail bartenders and selected them based on their places of employment and their role within the city’s cocktail community. I interviewed the bartenders to learn more about their backgrounds, to hear their thoughts on bartending, serving customers and, in the case of cocktail bartenders, cocktails and the cocktail community, and to ask them to explain practices that I had observed in the bar. After the interviews I returned to the bars and made further observations based on their comments and asked follow-up questions. This triangulation technique tested statements that bartenders made against observations of their actual behavior, which strengthened the data collected from both of these sources. In writing this article I selected quotes and episodes that typified patterns found in the data.
Findings
Bartender dispositions: work and self-identity
A common contemporary understanding of bartenders is that they are students, artists, writers, musicians or actors who consider the job to be temporary while they pursue their real careers (Lloyd, 2006). Indeed, four of the Martino’s bartenders fitted these images: musician, actress, writer/monologist/performer and future nursing student. However, their professional self-identity varied:
It depends on how you judge profession. If you judge it on income alone, then I’m a bartender. If you judge it by dedication or your life story, then I’m an actress. The bartending is a way to make money. (Kate, Martino’s)
Two of Martino’s bartenders describe themselves solely as bartenders: Linda, who is saving money and learning the industry in order to one day open her own bar, and Mary, who simply enjoys being a bartender for now and does not have any other career plans.
Like Linda and Mary, cocktail bartenders self-identify as bartenders, but they approach the job in unique ways that result from their professionalization. Professionalization allows cocktail bartenders to make legitimacy claims for their unique position among other types of bartenders. For example, to work at a specialized cocktail bar, a cocktail bartender must spend a lot of time practicing their technique and reading specific texts. They often train under a more experienced cocktail bartender; the cocktail community has developed several of its own training and accreditation programmes for bartenders to learn the finer details of the craft. Wright’s (2005) booksellers emphasize the special nature of the products that they sell in order to distinguish themselves from other workers. Specifically, they argue that books are not really commodities, and that ‘selling’ books entails applying their own knowledge of books. Conversely, cocktail bartenders see drinks as commodities that are distinct from each other because of the varying dispositions that they apply to making and serving them.
First, they stress the significant amount of study and practice that they do outside of the bar:
What differentiates us from, say, [other types of bartenders] is we go home at the end of the night, drink and read about cocktails and study about cocktails. Those guys, once the bar’s closed, they’re probably done for the night. They’re not thinking twice about it. (Kevin, Warsaw)
Acquisition of cultural knowledge through continuous professional development represents a key way in which cocktail bartenders see themselves as distinct from other bartenders. Second, cocktail bartenders’ training and dedication to the job is often recognized by customers as unique, which validates their professional self-identity and provides them with self-worth:
One question that I got constantly when I was [working] at [another bar] was, ‘What do you really do?’ I got that a lot, because everyone’s an actor, everyone’s a writer, everyone’s a playwright, a director, a stage hand, a painter, a sculptor, and they’re just doing this to pay the bills. I don’t get asked that at Warsaw. People understand that if you’re working there you’re a bartender, you’re a professional: you obviously have a lot of knowledge and a lot of skill, and this is what you’re getting into. It takes a lot of time outside of the job in order to do our job. And you don’t ever get that question and it’s really, really nice. I can’t even explain to you how good that feels, to not have to deal with that question. This is what I do. (Marcus, Warsaw)
Finally, while cocktail bartenders recognize that customers can buy cocktails and drinks in any bar, they see the work outside and within the bar that they put into crafting cocktails as key elements of their products’ distinction. As Conner, a bartender at another bar, explains:
It takes a lot of effort to make a good drink. Every bar in New York can conceptually have the foundation to do it, it’s just how well it’s executed. Like [the bar down the street] – I’m sure you can go in there and they’ll know conceptually how to make a Manhattan, but even if they did the exact same ingredients as us, it would be a different drink because of the ice; not to mention because their vermouth is probably six years old.
Conner’s quote reveals the importance of cultural knowledge for cocktail bartenders. From their training, studying and participation in activities in the cocktail taste community (e.g. tastings, dinners and parties), cocktail bartenders acquire a set of shared values on what makes a quality cocktail. They use ‘mixology’ – the theory behind the craft of making cocktails – as their guide to cocktail-making and the foundation of their knowledge. Its principles profess the use of specific techniques (stirring, shaking, measuring), recipes (precise combinations and proportions) and ingredients (freshly squeezed fruit juices, high quality spirits, varying forms of ice) for the sake of achieving balance in a cocktail (i.e. each ingredient is present and the drink is in harmony). Mixology reached maturity in the USA during its classical period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but its principles disappeared from American drinking culture as a consequence of national prohibition (1920–1933). It remained dormant in the proceeding decades until it was revived by cocktail bartenders in the 1980s, and blossomed as the basis of cocktail communities in the 1990s and 2000s in post-industrial cities around the country.
By following the principles of mixology, cocktail bartenders feel that they are resurrecting a lost craft; the past is an important part of the attitudes of the cocktail community:
I’ve always said that we’re still trying to regain what we had 100 years ago. Before prohibition things were just crazy. Bartenders were making their own bitters, every bar had a house bartender and every place had well over 100 drinks and it was insane. The garnishes were so elaborate, so over the top, the fresh fruit was just all over the place, different types of ice, it was amazing! And we’re not back there yet, so it’s important to go back there to figure out what we should do next. So I would say, if anything, that’s definitely our school of thought. (Mark, Warsaw)
Most importantly, cocktail bartenders consider mixology’s basic principles to be superior to those that became standard practice in American bars, such as soda guns and ice from basic ice machines. Baron compares freshly squeezed juice with packaged juice:
There are some bars that get ‘fresh’ juice from a juicer, which is not fresh, it was not squeezed by hand and the juice tends to be thinner. There are numerous bars that buy fresh lime juice that’s maybe two days old, and they keep it for another two days. (Baron, Red Church)
Cocktail bartenders use such principles as handcrafted, fresh and balance acquired from their taste community to add value and distinction to the products that they provide.
A key disposition that cocktail bartenders learn concerns how to curtail judgment of customers’ tastes. Cocktail bartenders know that they represent a rarefied drinking culture with which most people are not familiar. Therefore, they try to never judge a customer’s drink order or their personal tastes when they do not match either their own or that of the larger cocktail culture. For example, cocktail bartenders dislike vodka, which is by far the most consumed spirit in the USA. Since it is intentionally distilled to be odorless, colorless and tasteless, they feel that vodka does not serve any function in balancing a cocktail – but they do not judge customers when they order a vodka-based drink. Instead, they try to use the order to introduce them to the culture:
If they want that vodka soda, by all means. You’re going out, this is what you want, you get it. But if there is that window I will definitely pull it up a little higher and be like, ‘Would you like to come in? Would you like to try something else?’ You just find that one thing. Like pomegranate, ‘Ooo, what’s that?’ And you make a pomegranate drink and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is amazing, what is it?’ ‘It’s gin.’ (Kevin, Warsaw)
Cocktail bartenders already believe their drinks to be of a higher quality than those of most bars. They gradually learn the skill of steering a customer out of their drink comfort zone and towards their own brand of cocktail culture without insulting their tastes.
Along with adopting these principles, being a cocktail bartender entails living a certain lifestyle rather than just working in a job. Bourdieu (1984) considered cultural intermediaries to be their own best consumers, in that they embody the values and lifestyles that they are in the business of presenting and representing (see Smith Maguire, 2008). Cocktail bartenders not only study and practice on their own, they also frequently go to other bars and restaurants to keep up with cocktail, spirit and culinary trends.
Neighborhood bartenders employ a different set of dispositions in their work. Instead of using cultural knowledge to create meaning for products, they see taking care of the social and emotional needs of their customers as the most important aspect of their job. Since regular customers sit in the bar for long periods of time and come into Martino’s often (sometimes daily), bartenders gradually learn their social and emotional needs. Therefore, they understand their job to include such roles as caretaker, therapist and mother to their customers, which carries the dual role of compassionate guardian as well as authority figure. In other words, bartenders at Martino’s consider their job to be to control the emotional and social environment within the bar.
This management includes engaging in their own ‘emotional labor’ (Hochschild, 1983). Neighborhood bartenders over time acquire a sensibility of emotional distance in their jobs. They express the need to keep themselves safe – primarily emotionally, but also physically – from customers. They often refer to this as their ‘armor’. Monica explains:
Being a bartender has taught me to keep a certain distance, you know? I tend to put up a wall. I deliberately am a little more reserved. You’re trapped behind a bar by what other people want to say to you and so you have to have this wall between you at all times. When someone knows something so personal about you and they want to talk about that all the time, you know, you can’t avoid it. You [just] don’t give them your weak spot.
Without possessing this sensibility, neighborhood bartenders risk becoming emotionally overwhelmed in their jobs, but without a degree of closeness they risk not being able to suit their customers’ social and emotional needs. They must get to know their customers in order to be able to provide for their needs, without getting too deep into their problems or revealing too much of their personal lives.
As with cocktail bartenders, neighborhood bartenders acquire an attitude towards judgment but try carefully to not judge customers by the quantity of their drinks, rather than the quality. When Kate started working at Martino’s, she refused to work during the day because that was when older regulars, many of whom were alcoholics, went to the bar; she knew she did not have the emotional ability to deal with them: ‘I was very clear at the beginning that I’m not doing days there. I can’t take care of them in the way they need.’ Again, customer ‘needs’ here refer to emotional needs rather than sensory experiences. Over time, Kate learned how to control her own emotions as well as provide for her customers’ needs:
I always dreaded having to cut people off, and now I’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t really bother me anymore, because I’ve also realized that when you cut somebody off, if you don’t judge them, they feel that. I used to get angry, because I would feel put upon. I would feel angry at them for making me cut them off and them not being responsible enough to stop, and making me throw them out. I would get angry that they put me in that position. So now I don’t see it that way anymore, and so it makes it a lot easier. I just say, ‘This is just the way they are and who they are, and I’m doing them a favor and it’s out of love.’ – and that’s how I try to do it with everybody. That’s how I approach it, because nobody wants to be judged, especially someone who’s drunk and sensitive and needy. The last thing they need is someone to look at them like they’re crap.
While cocktail bartender dispositions revolve around how alcoholic ingredients work well together and how they can appeal to customers, those of neighborhood bartenders focus on how to prevent customers from consuming too much.
I do not mean to suggest here that cocktail bartenders do not have to deal with alcoholics or intoxicated customers; rather, they neither deal with alcoholic customers nor discuss how to handle overly intoxicated customers with such great regularity as neighborhood bartenders. Such social issues very rarely surface in conversations with cocktail bartenders or at cocktail bars, and cocktail bartenders do not define their jobs as a form of emotional caretaking. As mentioned previously, cocktail bartenders try to get close to the aesthetic preferences and desires of their customers so that they can use their shared values towards quality to find the appropriate drink for them. Neighborhood bartenders possess the attitude that it is their responsibility to take care of the social and emotional needs of their customers, while maintaining the cautious sensibility that in doing so, they may be harming themselves. With these dispositions in their minds, bartenders interact with customers and use certain practices to add value to the products that they sell and enhance their experiences in their bars.
Bartender devices: interactive service work
Both cocktail and neighborhood bartenders say that customer service is the most important aspect of their jobs. Kate references cocktail bartenders when she explains the key to bartending:
Making drinks is the least of what you do as a bartender, unless you’re working in a super high-end bar where the cocktails are premium, like in those famous cocktail bars where they make their own egg white whatever. It’s taking care of your bar and who’s in it. It’s about people. It’s always about people. Any good bartender is about people. (Kate, Martino’s)
Kate draws a contrast, but cocktail bartenders understand their work in a similar manner. Although cocktails and mixology are central to their bars, careers and lifestyles, they also emphasize service over drink-making:
No matter how great a drink you make, if people don’t feel comfortable, they don’t feel like they’ve got what they wanted out of [their experience], they won’t come back. Regardless of how good the drink was, you really have to make people feel comfortable, no matter what the situation is. (Marcus, Warsaw)
Despite this point of agreement, cocktail and neighborhood bartenders use their own distinct service practices to add value to their products. For cocktail bartenders, this means applying the dispositions and cultural knowledge that they have acquired through professionalization to make customers the ‘right’ drink for them and provide them with a unique sensory experience.
I walk into Warsaw on a Sunday evening. Marcus, one of tonight’s two bartenders, greets me and hands me a menu while placing a black cocktail napkin on the bar. I briefly check out what they have, but already know what I want. ‘Can I have a Negroni please, up?’ ‘Sure. How would you like it?’ asks Marcus, ‘More gin-heavy or more of an even mix?’ ‘Yeah, more gin-heavy.’ ‘Ok.’ He turns and gets to work. Cocktail bartenders laud the classic Negroni for its simplicity. Marcus has made it many times before. He starts by placing a mixing glass on the bar and then, using a jigger (a small stainless steel bar tool that measures liquid in ounces), carefully pours two ounces of gin. When he hits the brim, he tips it into the glass in a smooth motion. He then does the same thing with sweet vermouth and Campari, adding an ounce of each into the glass. With the ingredients poured, Marcus then takes large ice cubes and whacks them in his hand with his bar spoon, gently dropping the cracked pieces into the sitting liquid until they reach the top. Using the same spoon, he then stirs the icy mixture for about a minute. He takes a cocktail glass out of the refrigerator, places it on the black napkin in front of me and, using a julep strainer, pours the drink. Before I can take a sip, Marcus cuts a small disc-shaped peel from an orange and grabs a quick-strike match from a clear glass candleholder on the bar. Lighting the match, he carefully brings the flame to the rind-side of the peel and goes around it in a circular motion. Using his thumb and forefinger he then squeezes the peel in the direction of the match, which creates a little burst of flame. Groaning, he says, ‘Ugh, that didn’t have the desired effect.’ ‘What is that supposed to do?’ I ask. ‘Well, it’s functional flair. When you set the twist on fire it caramelizes the oils in the peel and you get a nice smoky taste in the drink. It’s supposed to create a larger flame than that and look cool, but this is a dead spot in the bar with the fans going. There’re a few dead spots where the candles go out.’
Direct mediation at bars starts with the drink order. For cocktail bartenders, the order is a problem or a puzzle, but it is also a challenge: their aim being to use their knowledge of mixology to find the ‘right’ drink for customers and establish trust:
When you hand them the perfect drink when they didn’t even know that this is what they wanted, all of a sudden they trust you and they’re not going to order a vodka tonic after that … At that point you’ve earned their trust. (Marcus, Warsaw)
Therefore, they take different approaches to meet these goals. The first is a deductive or ‘top-down’ approach that cocktail bartenders take to a customer’s order. It is ‘top-down’ because it starts with a drink that falls within their repertoire, which is based on mixology and then leads to a discussion. Cocktail bartenders must then collect data on how the customer wants it prepared, which affects how it tastes. The above vignette demonstrates this approach. The Negroni is a classic drink that falls within a specific mixological category (gin-based, stirred and bitter). However, the initial information that cocktail bartenders obtain when a customer orders a drink like Negroni is vague, since one need not know much about cocktails or their own tastes to know it and order it. By ordering a Negroni, I signaled to Marcus that I was at least somewhat ‘in the know’ and possibly even a member of the cocktail ‘taste community’. However, he still needs more information to reach a point of trust. With his own knowledge of the field (i.e. Negronis can be prepared in different ways), Marcus then probes a bit deeper into my tastes to determine what version of it is best for me. Instead of just making the drink with the standard recipe (‘more of an even mix’, as he says or an ounce of each ingredient), he asks if I want it more ‘gin-heavy’, which is an alternative version of the Negroni. This is a key step in the deductive approach:
An order at the bar always leads to a conversation, because there are so many ways to make a [drink] and it’s often the case that everyone has a different interpretation and preference. (Joel, Warsaw)
Marcus also uses this order to teach something new about the drink. The flamed orange peel is not a part of the classic Negroni recipe, but based on the rules of mixology he knows it is compatible with the drink. The action, which I had never seen done before, inspires me to ask him a question about it and learn more about cocktails and taste. Like gaining trust, educating consumers on mixology is also a goal of cocktail bartenders, who try to influence customers’ tastes based on their own values:
Opening people’s eyes to things, that’s like one of our jobs. That’s like what the most important part of our jobs is. The thing is, you have the vodka drinker coming in, they say: ‘I hate gin.’ You don’t hate gin, you just don’t know that you like gin. You’ve never had gin in the right way. So we open people’s eyes to things they don’t like. When people tell you they don’t like something, it’s very exciting because it’s a challenge to you to make them realize that they really do like it. (Eric, Warsaw)
As mentioned previously, through practices based on their cultural knowledge and attitudes towards their work, cocktail bartenders add value to their products, make customers the ‘right’ drink and communicate their values. They do not just provide consumers with a unique sensory experience. They also link them to a ‘more fundamental consuming mentality’ (Smith Maguire, 2008: 212) based on their values.
However, sometimes customers neither have a drink in mind when they order, nor know their own personal tastes. Also as mentioned previously, in these cases, cocktail bartenders use an inductive or ‘bottom-up’ approach from the ‘ground’ (i.e. information collected from the customer), instead of selecting a drink based on drink categories. They gradually collect information on the customer’s preferences, dislikes and tastes through a series of questions. They gather ‘hints’ to lead them to the correct drink. The inductive approach also involves cultural knowledge of drink families, but the key is to choose a drink based on the information provided by the customer. It is also in such orders that we see the disposition towards judgment in action.
A young man walks into Red Church on a Wednesday night and takes a seat at the bar. Sean, tonight’s bartender, greets him and asks him what he would like. He says he is waiting for his friend, but will order anyway. ‘I’ll have a Vodka Gibson’. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have vodka or pickled onions. Are there any other flavors you like?’ ‘Um, something minty?’ ‘Sure. Maybe with another light spirit, like gin?’ ‘Hmm, I never really get gin.’ ‘I’ll make something with gin but that doesn’t have a strong gin taste.’ ‘Ok, yeah.’ As Sean makes his drink, the man’s friend arrives and sits down. They chat a bit and Sean comes over. ‘Good evening, sir. Have you been here before?’ He shakes his head. ‘Ok, well we have a verbal menu. So what I’m going to need from you are hints or clues, flavors or spirits that you like or that you don’t like, so that I know to steer clear of certain things.’ ‘Well, I normally drink vodka, but he [his friend] says you don’t have it’. ‘Right. How do you usually drink vodka?’ ‘Just vodka tonics.’ ‘Ok, so the effervescence. Do you like raspberries?’ ‘Yeah. But not sweet.’ ‘What I have in mind has sweetness to it, but isn’t sweet.’ ‘Sure, sounds good.’ Sean makes both drinks and presents them to the men. ‘For you, sir, I have an East Side Rickey: that’s gin, soda water, fresh lime juice and mint. And for you a Raspberry Fix, that’s muddled raspberries, gin, lemon juice and some simple syrup. Enjoy guys.’
Here we see an example of the inductive approach. Through interaction Sean gradually gathers information on what the men like. After he learns that both like vodka, which Red Church does not carry, he must probe to find other hints of their taste. When the first man says he likes the flavor of mint, Sean immediately thinks of pairing it with a light spirit, like gin. When I asked Sean about this order later in the night, he said:
A Vodka Gibson is a strong vodka drink. When he said he liked mint, I knew the East Side would work. He wasn’t sure about gin, but it’s not a strong gin flavor and he already drinks Gibsons.
The other man likes vodka tonics, which tells Sean that he likes drinks that are ‘effervescent’. He branches out from this and asks about fruit flavors, such as raspberries. Sean knows that vodka tonics are refreshing and have a bit of citrus juice in them (usually lemon wedges). The Raspberry Fix that is handmade with fresh juice and special ice is a mixology-based alternative for people who like those flavors. Sean uses both drinks as gateways to open a customer’s window of curiosity, match them with a product that suits their tastes and informs them of mixology.
Neighborhood bartenders also add value to the products that they sell through customer interaction, but they do not use cultural knowledge to influence consumer preferences. Instead, neighborhood bartenders seek to enhance the social quality of the customer’s time in the bar. One way they do this is by making customers a part of the action.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon at Martino’s and happy hour has just begun. Mary is bartending and I’m sitting next to Jack and KC, both regular customers, in the front of the bar. At the other end is a young man, perhaps 30, sitting by himself. Mary has spent most of her time talking with us (mainly hearing KC talk about the final details of his divorce), but occasionally goes to chat with the man and see if he needs anything. Megan, another regular, enters the bar, a little disheveled from the street. She greets the regulars and Mary, who has already gone to the bin to get Megan her normal Budweiser bottle with a small glass. But Megan stops her. ‘I’ll just have ice water, Mary.’ ‘What! Water during happy hour? You’re not drinking?’ asks Mary, in feigned shock. ‘I’m being evaluated tomorrow. I want to be as sharp as possible.’ Megan is an ESL teacher for foreign-born adults and tomorrow is her programme’s teacher evaluations. Mary puts the bottle back on ice and serves her water. She then makes a connection between Mary and the other customer. ‘You know, that guy over there just told me that he also teaches immigrant kids.’ ‘Really? Where?’ asks Mary. ‘I don’t know, but he seems nice. [To the man] Hey, this is Megan, she’s a teacher too.’ After some exchanges across the bar (which were too loud, according to Jack), the man gets up from his seat with his drink and sits by us. He introduces himself to Megan and the two talk about their teaching experiences.
In this vignette Mary relies on a number of interpersonal skills in her interactions with customers. She devotes a lot of time to her regulars, listening in this case to their marital problems. She knows what they normally drink and prepares them before they have had the chance to sit down, but she does not engage with her regulars to the extent that she avoids the casual visitor. Mary learns from her interactions with him that he is a teacher and she judges that he is nice enough for conversation and to introduce to others. More importantly, she gets the impression that he would be willing to be introduced to others if the opportunity arises. Martino’s bartenders learn the patterns of their regulars over time, but they size up new customers in both of these ways through brief interactions. Megan’s explanation for not drinking leads to her to make the connection between their occupations and informally invite the man to join the group in the front of the bar, which he does. In these small ways, neighborhood bartenders add social value to the products that they sell.
Conclusion
Through an ethnographic examination of the devices and dispositions of bartenders, this article has demonstrated how a traditional service profession has transformed into cultural intermediary work. Cocktail bartenders, who exist at a key point of mediation between consumers and the drinks industry, use the skills and cultural knowledge that they learn through professionalization to add value to their products and differentiate themselves from others types of bartenders. These bartenders present and represent their products to their customers through interactive service work in order to match them with the right drink and educate them on mixology and their own tastes. Neighborhood bartenders, who add different value to their products, interact with customers in a manner that creates a social and emotional experience for them, but does not mediate between forms of cultural production and consumption.
As this analysis shows, cocktail bartenders are cultural intermediaries, but they occupy a selective niche. This niche is constructed by the same conditions that allow these workers to emerge as cultural intermediaries. Cocktail bartenders deal with cultural and material products of ‘restricted production’ (Bourdieu, 1993). The cocktails that they make are highly rarefied, aestheticized and based on revived principles that define quality. Cocktail bartenders have autonomy over the cultural knowledge and forms of professionalization that represent and impart these values. Through interactive service work, cocktail bartenders ‘bridge the gap’ between production and consumption. They directly communicate their values to customers, learn about their tastes and aim to influence them. However, since cocktail bartenders are autonomous workers who control the conditions of exclusivity in the cultural field and serve as its sources of cultural knowledge, they also widen this gap (Negus, 2002). Despite their pedagogical aims, their community, notions of service and definitions of quality are limited in terms of access. In addition, their rarefied products become increasingly exclusive due to the cultural knowledge and sheer expense they require to consume. This transformation of cocktail bartenders into cultural intermediaries demonstrates the unique way in which larger economic shifts impact service work. It will be important for future research to continue to discover how service industries and workers become differentiated, and how traditional service occupations are being redefined.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Notes
Biographical note
Richard E Ocejo is an assistant professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. His research uses ethnographic and qualitative methods to examine the disparate definitions of, conflicts over and uses of community among people who contest and construct a nightlife scene in New York. Currently he is researching the meanings of work and craft among tradesmen, focusing on the attitudes and practices of people in several occupations to reveal the changing nature of work in the post-industrial economy. His articles can be found in City & Community and City and Culture, and Society, and he is the editor of Ethnography and the City: Readings on Doing Urban Fieldwork (Routledge, 2012), and will be publishing a book with Princeton University Press in 2013 on his Lower East Side research.