By Rachel Kramer Bussel

I stopped drinking, pretty much for good, over two years ago. I don’t tend to stare longingly at people drinking in bars, or feel too wistful, but the times when I’m overwhelmed with temptation for alcohol are usually times when I’m consumed by the desire for…desire–for getting fucked, along with getting fucked up.

To put it simply, I miss drunk sex. Well, one kind of drunk sex. I certainly don’t miss the “I’m going to drink so I get up the courage to put the moves on someone.” I tried that last year and while I got my much-fantasized-about makeout session, it was so not worth it, and was also just a one-time thing (as opposed to the let’s-move-in-together relationship I’d pictured). So now every time I see the person, I feel like an idiot. I also don’t miss waking up in someone’s bed and not knowing their name, or getting drunk just so I could get in the spirit of sex. Nor do I miss drinking in the hopes that it would make me look more attractive to someone I wanted to get with.

But I am a bit nostalgic for the sweet, swoony buzz from a good drink or two–the kind that used to make me feel warm and liquid and a little light-headed. The kind of buzz that made me both ferociously horny and oblivious to who saw me making out (or more) in taxis, restaurants, wherever. I miss the bliss of getting lost in both the alcohol and the person I’m with so that it feels like there is no tomorrow.

It’s hard to get to that place of utter focus on sex and just sex, for me, anyway, with the umpteen thoughts, doubts and uncertainties racing through my head. When I am able to reach that place of body over mind, of sensation over stress, though, sex provides both pleasure and relief, along with a way to feel closer to my partner.

The whole reason I stopped drinking is that it didn’t obliterate my thoughts, doubts and uncertainties; at least, not permanently (if it did, well, maybe I’d return to vodka). As soon as the buzz wore off, my feelings would just return with a vengeance, and no amount of hot sex or even being in love could make them go away.

I remember exactly when I stopped drinking, pretty much for good. I was buying fifteen of my closest friends dinner and martinis to celebrate a book deal (ah, hubris!) and getting increasingly wasted. I told everyone I had to leave at 9 for a podcast interview. About sex, my primary beat. Well, 9 rolled around, and went, and I was getting perilously close to the appointed time. I wound up calling in from my taxi home, then blathering away about orgasms from my bed while the room spun around me.

Some things are fun to do drunk, and maybe it’s just me, but trying to act serious and professionally knowledgeable isn’t one of them. I later became good friends with the host of the show, who said she had no idea, but still. I knew.

(Listen here if you want to determine for yourself whether I sound smashed: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/datingroadkill/2007/02/13/a-surprise-valentines-day-show).

I was never one of those savoring-the-fine-wine types of drinkers. I was more like, “Which drink will get me out of my head fastest?” The drunken podcast was the culmination of one too many mornings waking up feeling like I’d made a fool of myself the night before. That, plus coming from a family of alcoholics, made me decide that the best course of action was to quit cold turkey. I allowed myself the occasional (once or twice a year) drink, but even that–I’ve recently decided–is a bit too much for me to handle.

I don’t know if not drinking makes me a better lover or not. I think it probably makes me a boring date. The other night a really hot girl asked in a way that could only be called overtly flirty what I wanted to drink. “A seltzer?” I said in the hesitant way I still have, knowing that’s about as big a buzzkill of an answer as one can provide, since I’ve also sworn off Diet Coke. “I’m a cheap date,” I tried to joke.

“A seltzer with…” She looked at me so intensely, I truly wished I could add something boozy, if only to let her know that I thought she was hot and that I was potentially interested. I think some people take my non-drinking as an automatic sign that I’m not interested in them, which just isn’t true. I hate that drinking is so often the way we define our sexual interests, as if those of us who don’t booze it up are also celibate.

That being said, the kind of sex I’m most likely to be having right now is with my boyfriend, and it is, with rare exceptions, wild, kinky, rough. There’s spanking and choking and bondage and dirty talk and blowjobs and it all happens really fast and furious. There’s no way I could relax enough to submit sexually to him if I were wasted, and I wouldn’t want to be anything other than fully present. I need to be alert to make sure that what we’re doing is safe, to fully process and enjoy it. If I were drunk (or if he were), I’d fear that we might go too far and do things we might regret. With my thinking faculties intact, I can exult in the enjoyment of pushing boundaries.

Perhaps for some people, being drunk gives them permission to “go wild” in a sexual way, but if I’m with someone I want to be with, I don’t have those qualms at all. I like kinky sex, I like pushing my own personal erotic envelope. I get off on the occasional moments of fear or uncertainty that come with trusting someone else to set the tone, rules, and course of the sexual action. If my senses were dulled by drinking, I’d miss out on all the nuances of our play. I trust my instincts more when I’m sober.

That doesn’t mean every time I have sex it’s perfect and magical. But when it’s not, I deal with it; I figure out a way to either make it better or pause and restart another time. When I drank, I rarely checked in with myself like that. I thought I needed sex, and the feeling of being attractive, to “make” me feel better. Now I know that even the hottest sex isn’t a panacea.

Still, sometimes when my boyfriend orders a drink, I’m tempted to have one of my own. It looks fun, easy, comforting. In some ways, it’s not so much about sex as wanting to fit in, because not drinking makes you stand out in most any bar, and for someone who craves others’ approval, that’s not always easy. It’s not that I’d spiral into nightly drunkenness if I had one drink, but it’s infinitely healthier for my psyche, not to mention my body, if I abstain.

Maybe simply remembering my days of drunken sex, as hazy as they are, is enough, but even if it’s not, it’s the choice I’m making. I’ll leave the hot, drunk sex to someone else. May they enjoy it!

Rachel Kramer Bussel (rachelkramerbussel.com) is a New York-based author, editor and blogger. She’s edited over 25 anthologies, including The Mile High Club, Do Not Disturb, and Best Sex Writing 2009, and is host of the monthly In The Flesh Reading Series (inthefleshreadingseries.com). In her PG life, she blogs at Cupcakes Take the Cake (http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com), for which she’s appeared on The Martha Stewart Show.

Today we present to you an excerpt from Rosie Schaap’s fantastic memoir, Drinking With Men. In it, she turns everything you think you know about “drinking” books on its head. This is not a memoir of euphoria followed by the inevitable despair and then repair. No—this is a celebration of the joys of a hearty and healthy drinking life. She’s in it for the long run.

Part of our mission at Drinking Diaries is to give our readers a glimpse into other drinking lives, other families, other worlds. So even if you don’t share Rosie Schaap’s love of drinking and bars, you can’t help but be drawn in by her stories.

For someone like me, who grew up in a home where alcohol was loaded with shame and who developed an ambivalent relationship to booze, this book is a revelation. She highlights an important side of drinking–drinking as social glue and community-builder rather than as something you use to self-medicate or retreat from your own feelings or world.

Rosie Schaap writes the monthly “Drink” column for The New York Times Magazine. She has also contributed to This American Life and npr.org. You can read our drinking interview with Rosie here.

From Drinking With Men:

“But my attraction to bars is less governed by the laws of physics than it is by the rules of romance: I prefer one bar at a time. When it comes to where I drink, I’m a serial monogamist. Still, although loyalty is upheld as a virtue, bar regularhood—the practice of drinking in a particular establishment so often that you become known by, and bond with, both the bartenders and your fellow patrons—is often looked down upon in a culture obsessed with health and work. But despite what we are often told, being a regular isn’t synonymous with being a drunk; regularhood is much more about the camaraderie than the alcohol. Sharing the joys of drink and conversation with friends old and new, in a comfortable and familiar setting, is one of life’s most unheralded pleasures.

And yes, that goes for women, too. Or it should, anyway. If regularhood is considered suspect behavior, then female regularhood is doubly so. In many parts of the world, women just don’t go into bars alone. Even in comparatively less patriarchal societies, such as our own, a solitary woman at a bar is a curiosity, a wonderment to be puzzled over. And even in New York, where all things seem possible, as a bar regular who happens to be female, I am something of an anomaly. Regularhood is still predominantly the province of men.

I’ve been going into bars since the age of fifteen. Certainly in my youth I knew that patronizing bars was unusual behavior—but I figured that was due to my age, not my gender. There was the excitement of getting one over and getting served, of trying to fit in, unquestioned, with grown-ups in their natural habitat. But as I got older and that thrill abated, what I discovered in bars was much richer. As a regular, I have found friendship, comfort, and community. Mostly, I’ve found that fellowship in the company of men. Relations between the sexes at bars are often perceived as predatory and dangerous. But I did not look to bars for a place to hook up; I looked to bars for a place to belong.

In 1936, Vogue editor Marjorie Hillis counseled readers of her single-girl guide Live Alone and Like It. “It is not incorrect for a woman to go alone into any bar she can get into,” she wrote, “but we don’t advise it . . . if you must have your drink, you can have it in a lounge or restaurant, where you won’t look forlorn or conspicuous.” I find it remarkable— and a little depressing—that nearly eighty years later, ideas identical to hers still seem deeply internalized by many women. “I just don’t feel comfortable walking into a bar alone,” a friend once told me. “Like everyone’s looking at me and feeling sorry for me. Like there’s something wrong with girls who go drinking by themselves.”

For better or worse, I’ve seldom worried about who’s looking at me or not looking at me, or about what they might or might not be thinking. But I have noticed a pattern: Every time I’ve fallen hard for a bar, I’ve invited my best girlfriends to join me there for a drink, meet my fellow regulars, soak up the ambience that I found so appealing. Invariably, they like it. They have a good time. But, unlike me, they have no particular interest in returning the next night, or the next, or the ones that follow. Not only does the idea of becoming a regular at a bar hold no allure for them, they are also often puzzled by my enduring bar-love. But they have come to admire my ability to integrate, to talk to anyone, to be one of the guys.

In his very funny 1935 tract Her Foot Is on the Brass Rail, the humorist and newspaperman Don Marquis laments the post-Prohibition presence of women in bars. For men, there was “no longer any escape, no harbor or refuge . . . where the hounded male may seek his fellow and strut his stuff, safe from the atmosphere and presence of femininity.” In my experience these concerns have been beside the point; if anything, my chronic regularhood has made me assimilate into a largely male culture, not change it—except by the fact that I am part of it.

Regardless of my gender, a bar is my safe haven, my breathing space. Knowing how to read a bar helps. My favorites have never been big, rowdy sports bars teeming with testosterone or trendy spots featuring cutting-edge cocktails, but intimate, friendly neighborhood places where relationships with other regulars—and bartenders—have the right conditions to take hold, and where my instincts tell me it’s a safe space to be a woman in a bar.”

Reprinted by arrangement with Riverhead, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from DRINKING WITH MEN by Rosie Schaap Copyright (c) 2013 by Rosie Schaap

I wrote about my favorite bar, The Royal Palms, in an essay for Drinking Diaries. When I heard it had closed, I was incredulous—how could they do that to all the fans, past, present and future? But here’s Lenny Leonardo, the former owner of The Palms, quoted in “Last Call for College Bars,” Courtney Rubin’s piece that ran in the New York Times:

“These kids today won’t pay even $2 for a drink…They buy a bottle of Southern Comfort and show up in time to try to get laid. But they just end up throwing up in my men’s room, and I get reprimanded because it looks like I’m the one who let them get this drunk.”

Now I understand that I’m stuck in a romantic vision of collegetown that no longer applies.

In explaining the decline of the college bar, Rubin writes: “These days text messaging, Facebook and Foursquare make it possible to see if a bar is worth the trip (translation: who is there) without leaving the dorm. Meanwhile, location-based mobile apps like Grindr, which point to the nearest available candidates looking for sex or not-quite-sex, are helping dethrone college bars from their place as meat markets.”

I found myself pining for the days when my friends and I would wander around collegetown, heading from bar to bar in search of a crush. We never knew who we would run into, though each bar had its own distinct personality and fan-base. Now, much of that sense of mystery is gone.

Also, the slowness of those nights. Sometimes, we’d hang out for hours at The Palms, sitting in the wooden booths, drinking beer and carving our names. We drank a lot of beer. But now, apparently, hard liquor rules. One senior at Cornell is quoted as saying, “I drink liquor because it takes too long to drink beer.”

Sigh. Here’s the generation gap, rearing its bewildered head.

Readers:  College students: Do you go to bars? Do you think the bar scene is dying? Graduates: Do you have a favorite bar from your college days? When’s the last time you visited? Is it still open?

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These days, yoga is being paired with just about everything–from wine tasting and Grateful Dead music to dance parties and artisanal tasting dinners. The latest incarnation comes at the Cobra Club, opened last month by yoga teachers and hospitality industry vets Nikki Koch, Julia Huffman, and Dana Bushman. It’s not typical to have a yoga studio in the midst of a fully licensed bar, but these three friends were looking for something a little more social than the typical yoga experience. ”Every time we take a great class, afterward we want to go have a drink and relax and have a conversation,” Koch told New York magazine.

Located in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, the studio serves Counter Culture coffee from 6:30 am and then morphs into a full bar in the afternoon. Organic Red Hook hot dogs and Frito pies (including a vegetarian version) are also available until 4 am on Friday and Saturday. And lest anyone attempt a headstand after a couple of drinks, the booze remains a post-practice activity at the Cobra Club. In case anyone’s had to much to drink the night before, the studio also offers a Hangover Yoga class on Saturday and Sunday.

The Cobra Club philosophy is stated clearly and best on their website:

We reject the idea that in order to live full and happy lives we must abstain from all vices, detach from the world and become saint-like. We believe that if there is a secret to life, it lies in experiencing all sides of existence – the bad and the good, sadness and joy, darkness and light. We embrace our vices for the value they bring to our lives.

Welcome to The Cobra Club. Yoga for your dark side, spirits for your soul.

Personally, I can’t wait to check it out…

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Here’s a Scenario for you: A bar in downtown Bloomington, Illinois hosted two liquor free teen nights on Tuesdays. The bar, Daddio’s, charged $6 and drew 185 people in its first week. To keep the crowd in check, local police officers hired two officers, in addition to the regular bar security. No problems were reported.

By week two, the crowd was cut in half, after the Bloomington Police, parents and other members of the community expressed concern about teens hanging out in a bar. That’s when the liquor commission stepped in, rejecting the bar’s plan to host four more teen nights, according to a local radio station, WJBC. Interestingly enough, the vote was tied, with 2 members saying yes to teen nights and 2 saying no, but a tie means the bar cannot move ahead.

Butch Thompson, the owner of Daddio’s, said he would remove all the liquor bottles and beer taps for teen nights, as well as most alcohol display advertising, but the powers-that-be on the liquor commission still felt uncomfortable with the teens-in-bar situation.

Thompson didn’t understand why his bar was being singled out, telling the radio station: “When Chuck E. Cheese’s can serve beer and wine, putting any of the blame on Daddio’s is pretty far-fetched.”

Still, the liquor commission held firm in their belief that a bar isn’t the best atmosphere in which to host teens. Mayor and Liquor Control Commissioner Steve Stockton, also mentioned the possibility of setting a precedent, with other bars wanting to hold their own teen nights if they approved Daddios’ request.

I have to say I would have voted no to the teen nights. Something about the whole thing makes me feel uncomfortable, too, like we’re training teens for a life spent in bars.

Even if you take away the liquor bottles and the advertising, it’s obvious that the kids are hanging out in a bar. And with all the underage-drinking problems, do teens really need to associate bars with fun and socializing? You could argue that it’s great for teens to be in a bar atmosphere with no drinking, that maybe one day they’ll go to a bar and not feel the need to drink, but that may be wishful thinking.

What do you think, readers? Teen nights in bars: Yay! Or no way?

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Last week, I spent two nights in a row sitting in bars—one night at a new wine bar in my town; the next night, at the intimate bar of a local restaurant–and I was reminded why I love them. These were upscale, suburban bars, but I love all bars: city bars, local bars, dive bars, hotel bars, beer shacks, sports bars, college town bars. There’s the wine, of course, the buzz and the glow, but there’s so much more.

Sometimes I ask myself–If I had to give up drinking, would I give up bars, too? (This is typical of the daughter of an alcoholic, always relating everything back to the pathological. But that’s where my mind goes).

I know common wisdom says that people in recovery from alcoholism probably shouldn’t spend time in bars, especially because of the Pavlovian associations: bar=alcoholic drink. My mother, a recovered alcoholic who has been sober for nearly forty years, definitely does not hang out in bars.

But are bars just about the drinking? I (‘d like to) think not.

Here, then, are eight things, besides drinking, that I love about bars:

1.  There’s no pressure to talk. Sometimes you just want to be around people, but not interact with them. At a bar, it’s okay to be part of the collective conversation, nodding your head. There’s something appealing about sitting in a line, next to people, instead of sitting across from them, face to face. You can always watch the bartender, rushing around and mixing drinks, or stare at the stunning array of bottles and glowing liquids lined up against the wall. If you’re at a sports bar and you’re not in the mood to talk, you can always pretend to be engrossed in the game.

2.  A bar is the perfect place to eavesdrop. In fact, you can’t help but overhear everyone’s conversations, unless they’re whispering. Even then, it’s fun trying to figure out what people are saying from their body language.

3. Both introverts and extroverts can feel at ease. If you’re an extrovert, you’ll be the one telling the stories. If you’re an introvert, you’ll probably be the one listening. You only really have to make eye contact with the bartender, and usually, the bartender’s busy doling out drinks. Also, bartenders are generally expert conversationalists, and know how to bring people out of their shells.

4.  You’re supposed to bitch and moan. Bars are made for leaning and/or slumping. In other words, relaxing. Where else are we given carte blanche to vent?  Suburban America, in particular, can be very Pollyanna.  When people ask us how we are, we’re expected to smile and say, “Great.” Mostly because people are busy and don’t have time to listen to our woes. When you’re at a bar, people don’t want to hear “great.” They want to hear a story.

5.  Time stops, at a bar.  Bars are for small talk, but they’re also for deep talk. Sitting at a bar signals that you’re taking time out from your busy life to just, well, sit. Sometimes, I get sick of people rushing around, passing me by. I get that part of the motivation for sitting is the drinking. But there could also be bars for people who didn’t drink alcohol.  I’m not talking coffee bars, which are generally daytime hangouts, where people actually get work done. I’m talking dimly-lit nighttime hangouts for adults.

6.  Bars encourage community. Say you go to a restaurant with your friends, and you’re escorted to your table. It’s unlikely that you’ll engage in cross conversation with another table. At a bar, I almost can’t think of a time when I didn’t talk to the bartender or a few of the other patrons. Lonely musings become public debates. Also, there’s nothing like a shared sense of guilt to bond people. In the puritanical U.S., sitting around doing nothing is a guilty pleasure–you rarely see adults just hanging out.

7.  Bars are like confessionals. Bartenders are like shrinks, only much cheaper. For the price of a glass of wine ($15-20) or a few cranberry and seltzers, you’ve got yourself a great listener. Like shrinks, bartenders are being paid to stand there and listen, only it’s less awkward because there’s background music, and you’re not sitting in a circa 1970s office, staring at a brown handwoven blanket hanging on the wall.

8.  Pinball, pool, video games, darts, ping pong, and local bands. Who needs a drink when there’s pinball? (Yes, you can go to an arcade, but arcades attract sullen teens, which you may be currently parenting. Who needs the stress?) These fantastically satisfying pleasures are often found at dive bars. Need I say more?

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I know it’s not politically correct to be a cocktail mom anymore, but lately, I’ve been lamenting the fact that I don’t have enough time to drink. I keep fantasizing about a glass of wine (or three), but then by the time I get to it, I’m too tired.

I know many people who enjoy a nightly glass of wine when they cook, but to me, a glass of wine is best while sitting down or lounging around.

I miss my drinking days. The days when I’d meet my best friend after work and we’d split a bottle of cheap Chilean red, talking until my husband came home, at which time we’d all split another.

I miss the Fridays I’d go out for beers after work at dive bars, and then to dinner, and then out some more.

I miss parties where I drank too much and danced too much and said too much. Now, my tolerance is so low that even when I set out to let loose and drink like I used to, I end up quitting after two glasses.

But I think what I really miss sometimes is the freedom from responsibility, especially after a tough couple of days where I am constantly making choices for everyone. And then my mind turns to the easy escapes–like wine. But the truth is, I’m lucky–lucky that I have other options, other ways of taking the edge off. My mom wasn’t so lucky. The friend sitting across from me wasn’t so lucky.

Sometimes, we just miss the old days.

Maybe it’s not the drinking I miss, after all, because I can drink any time I want.

No. It’s not so much the drink I’m missing as the ritual of drinking–the camaraderie and the way drinking stops time and stretches it out. As if the wine is like a magic cleaning liquid, draining away all the gunk inside.

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A couple of weeks ago, Starbucks—with 10,700 U.S. stores—announced that it will be serving wine and beer (and savory snacks) in a handful of locations in Atlanta and Southern California by the end of the year. These locations join plans for several coffee-cum-bar Starbucks in Chicago, and the already five existing coffee/bars in the company’s hometown, Seattle, and one in Portland.

Apparently, the change in the coffee-only focus is a response to customer feedback for additional options to relax in Starbucks’ coffee houses. “As our customers transition from work to home, many are looking for a warm and inviting place to unwind and connect with the people they care about,” said Clarice Turner, Starbucks’ senior vice president, U.S. Operations in a release. “At select stores where it is relevant for the neighborhood, we are focused on creating an atmosphere where our customers can relax with a friend, a small bite to eat and a cup of coffee or glass of wine.”

After the decision to roll out the booze to other cities, Poll Position conducted a phone survey of 1,113 registered voters and asked the following: Starbucks is beginning to serve beer and wine in some of its stores.  Do you think that it is appropriate for Starbucks to serve beer and wine?

Respondents were divided with 39 percent saying yes, 39 percent saying no and 22 percent describing themselves as undecided. The poll’s administrators said men and women were divided on whether selling beer and wine is a good move for Starbucks.

Not surprisingly, men favored Starbucks selling beer and wine 49%-34%, while women opposed it 45%-30%.

After reading these results, I decided to take a poll of my own. I asked about 50 people, both men and women, ranging in age from 15 to 75, what they thought about Starbucks’ transformation.

Some were opposed to the idea because of how alcohol will change the coffee-house atmosphere:

“I don’t like it.  Starbucks has a certain vibe that doesn’t include people getting buzzed on alcohol.”

“I like the café experience, sitting there and reading. I don’t want my café to be my local pub also.”

“I think it goes against the environment that Starbucks tries to give off which is a warm, friendly coffee shop. If you start selling alcohol it will lose its peaceful sense.”

“For me, the two don’t mix well–Starbucks is a spot to go for coffee during the day and, at least for now, I still adhere to the 5:00 cocktail rule!”

Some liked the idea of moving towards the European model:

“It recasts Starbucks more in the mold of a European café.  Cappuccino in the morning, Prosecco by night.”

“In Europe, you see coffee bars also selling wine. Starbucks provides a sense of community, a gathering place, and wine always goes with that. The only thing is, I think they’d need to adapt the decor/atmosphere–less utilitarian, more luxe, sexier lighting perhaps. And music.”

“Kids in america are underexposed to alcohol in a ‘part of life’ way.  It can be a good thing to have it around in a place which is not a bar where people act more responsibly…My theory is the more it is not a big deal, the less the kids will make a big deal.

Some expressed concern about teens:

“I think it is horrible. Starbucks is, for some kids, a safe haven, and I’m not sure why they need to introduce alcohol into the mix.”

“As long as they are checking IDs, I’m fine with it.”

“I’m concerned because so many young people are already abusing the amount of caffeine they consume in a day. Then add the temptation of alcohol (and how easy it is to get a fake ID to purchase it).”

“So long as they carefully monitor minors, I see no problem in expanding the line. Having said that, there was something cozy and wholesome about having a non-mood altering zone there.”

There are those who try to stay away from alcohol:

“Total turnoff.  You go there for the calm, for the sip on coffee, open your laptop feel. Not to get drunk.”

“I think selling beer and wine essentially makes Starbucks into a bar—so many people in recovery try so hard to stay out of bars (and we spend a lot of time in coffee houses!)”

“The other night, around 5 pm, I had some time to kill in NYC before meeting friends for dinner, and I didn’t want to go into a bar alone but I thought a glass of wine might be nice. I chose Starbucks instead, and got coffee but fantasized about wine. Still–I think there should be some alcohol-free zones, so I’m on the fence, leaning toward compassion for those who need not to be around it!”

Some just feel strongly:

“I think it is a big mistake. It would probably make me boycott the company whose stores I am currently in about two times a day.”

“I think wine fits more with an upscale coffee store; perhaps select beers, but Bud at Starbucks makes no sense—might as well buy eggs and milk too.”

“I’m fine with it. It broadens their business opportunity and should help strengthen sales,  something all enterprises could use these days.”

“I wholeheartedly support their decision, feels a bit more like the European relationship to wine and beer — normalizes the place of these drinks in our culture.”

There are those who cover all the bases:

“My initial reaction was, “Oh no!”  I suppose I feel that way because I view Starbucks as a calm and peaceful place to read the paper and meet friends while enjoying a nice cup of coffee or tea.  I suppose in some sense that a nice glass of wine or beer would not detract from that experience.  In fact, many people would enjoy a good read or conversation with a glass of wine or beer.  I suppose it is the other problems associated with alcohol that concern me — over-consumption, under-age drinking, and the trouble that accompanies those things that puts doubt in my mind as to why this is necessary.  I like Starbucks just the way it is.  I would prefer to go elsewhere for my glass of wine. I am sure this decision by Starbucks is economically motivated to increase sales by capturing a new group of consumers.  I guess I keep thinking that I like Starbucks just the way it is and if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

And those that think, why not?

“When people get hung over, they can switch to coffee. With wars and the economy, it is such a minor thing.”

“We do not have prohibition any longer and live in a free market society, so they should be allowed to sell beer and wine.”

Needless to say, the subject of coffee houses morphing into bars is a loaded one. It seems a risky move for Starbucks, but only time will tell how the new metropolitan “coffee/bars” will be received. As far as I’m concerned, a few hours of work while sipping a latte is nice, but so is capping the afternoon with a glass of cabernet. It’s important that teens have a place to congregate, so maybe they can head to the diner, or one of the frozen yogurt places now cropping up on every corner.

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There is an answer to this question, but you’ll have to read on to find the answer (don’t cheat)…

Needless to say, the glass wine bottle reigns supreme. There has, however, been an increase in the types of containers storing wine in recent years. And it keeps on evolving.

For a long time, boxed wine has been looked down upon. But the quality of the wine has recently risen. Eric Asimov of the NYT explains the reasons in his piece, ”Reconsidering Boxed Wine.” Greater acceptance of the boxed wine notion is also good news if you’re counting carbon footprints–according to the Journal of Wine Research, shipping boxed wine produces half as many gas emissions as transporting heavier glass bottles.

Along with boxes, came the can. In a recent article on nytimes.com, “Cans of Wine Join the Boxed Set,” Bonnie Tsui provides great information on some of the newer, and finer, wines–drinkable not from a Bordeaux or Burgundy-shaped bottle, but rather from a specially-lined aluminum can.

Wine in a can isn’t entirely new, Tsui points out, and was “first sold by Barokes Wines, an Australian winemaker that invented a patented process called Vinsafe, which lines the aluminum to prevent any reaction that would impart flavors to the wine or degrade the container. The techniques are similar to what some craft brewers have been using, but wine’s high acidity and alcohol levels require a thicker lining.”

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Francis Ford Coppola was the first American winemaker to sell wine in a can–small, pink ones housing Sofia Blanc de Blancs, named for his daughter.

Wines on tap at Colicchio & Sons

I was surprised, however, when I ate recently at the latest of chef Tom Colicchio’s New York restaurants, Colicchio & Sons. The bar had an extensive selection of craft beers, as well as five “eco-friendly” wines…on tap. That’s right. On tap.

I’ve since learned that there are several advantages for serving wine on tap:

-Better for the environment. While bottles are recycled, wine served on tap is stored in environmentally friendly, air tight mini tanks that are reused.

-Cost-effective. Producers aren’t adding on the cost of the bottle, the cork, the carton and the transportation it comes in, so the restaurant owner pays less and so does the consumer.

-Freshness. Wine left over in a bottle used to pour wines by the glass is often discarded as it doesn’t last for more than a couple of days at most. Wine served on tap always tastes fresh, lasting for up to 60 days.

So I guess that’s what’s next…

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Whiskey has been in the press a lot these days, and all stories seem to focus on its increasingly devoted buyer: women.

The liquor industry is seeing a surge in women buying alcoholic drinks traditionally marketed toward men, reported a recent piece on msnbc.com titled, ‘Mad Men’ effect? More women get a taste for whiskey. The whiskey industry acknowledges that “women make 65 to 70 percent of the alcohol-purchasing decisions for at-home consumption,” according to New England Consulting Group, so its now-finally–concentrating on the female buyer. As a result, a number of companies have added different styles and a wide range of flavors and aromas.

In fact, there’s even a non-alcoholic version of whiskey on the market–ideal for those who like the flavor of whiskey and who are either pregnant or prefer to abstain from alcohol. As promoted on its website, ArKay is “the world’s first alcohol-free ,whiskey-flavored drink…a perfect beverage that anyone can consume.”

There is some controversy about Arkay, however–so don’t throw out the O’Doul’s just yet. According to the Scotch Whiskey Association, ArKay is just a “soft drink with artificial flavorings.”

Historically known as a masculine drink, whiskey advertisements have almost exclusively been directed at men (exhibit right). This sparked an interesting debate, addressed in Brooke Carey’s Huffington Post piece, Women and Whiskey Advertising. After researching whiskey’s advertising past, Carey uncovered that the question “isn’t why don’t whiskey makers pay the ladies any attention but, rather, why do women respond to masculine ads while the reverse doesn’t appear to be true?”

It’s an interesting question. So what do you think about the advertising focus? And who buys the booze in your house?

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In less than a week, my daughter will be off to college. Sitting on a beach chair a few weeks ago, her eyes glanced at her computer screen under the glare of the sun and the ocean only steps away. I assumed she was watching some incredibly gripping movie from which she couldn’t tear herself away. But when I inquired, she rolled her eyes and explained that she was watching an alcohol awareness video—a mandatory assignment for her university.

Despite the efforts made by educational institutions, new psychological research suggests that the pitfalls from all those jello shots and games of beer pong aren’t bad enough to make students stop drinking.

On the USA Today website, an article, “College Drinking is Liberating, and a Good Excuse,” reports on why the efforts to raise awareness are not working.

“We thought if we could demonstrate to students that their performance deteriorated under alcohol, they would be convinced that their alcohol consumption has put them at risk,” says psychologis E. Scott Geller, director of the Center for Applied Behavior Systems at Virginia Tech. But “knowing that one is impaired, physically and even emotionally, did not seem to reduce alcohol consumption.”

Geller, who’s been studying alcohol awareness since the mid-1980s, states clearly that the alcohol education hasn’t worked. “We have shown in several studies that their intentions influence their behavior. If they intend to get drunk, it’s difficult to stop that.”

Going for the effects is what it’s all about. One student, Brandie Pugh, a senior at Ohio University, says in the article: “I think everybody’s aim is to get drunk on the weekend. It’s not about the taste of the alcohol. It’s about the effects of it. It’s about the lowered inhibitions.”

In another study, researcher Laina Bay-Cheng, an associate professor of social work at the University at Buffalo-State University of New York, found that when teenagers drink, they think they can use their intoxicated state as an excuse for their actions. Students in her focus groups–there were 97 teens ranging in age from 14 to 17–described alcohol as emboldening and said it offers “liquid courage,” a phrase other researchers also have cited. Colleges, she says, need to “acknowledge and reckon with” alcohol’s appeal.

According to Bay Cheng, another result of drinking is that it can be an excuse for young women to “act out being sexually assertive, carefree, liberated,” she explains. ”If you have sex, you’re a slut, and if you don’t, you’re a prude — but drinking allows you to do both. You can go out, get drunk, have sex and the next day say, ‘I’m still a good girl.’”

In the USA Today article, Pugh goes on to say that she has seen this scenario play out on her campus repeatedly: “‘I was drunk so I hooked up with that guy.’ ‘I was drunk so I missed my class this morning.’ ‘I was drunk so I got in a fight.’ If it’s something they’re not proud of, it gives them an excuse.”

After next Wednesday, I’ll hope from afar that my daughter doesn’t ever feel that she needs to use alcohol as an excuse for anything.

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Bartenders serve up so much more to their customers than just booze: therapy, jokes, stories, simple companionship, matchmaking, moderation management. Why not offer protection?

Beyond the Bar, a new program in York, PA, trains bartenders and servers to recognize potential sexual abuse situations and prevent them from happening. Who better to look out for sexual predators than the eyes and ears of a restaurant or bar?

“Alcohol is implicated in sexual violence more than any other drug,” according to Kristen Sechrist, who works at the YWCA to help men and women recover from the aftereffects of date rape.

“People are taught to watch for predators in their workplace, school and neighborhood,” Sechrist said, “but who is looking out for them when their guard is down and they’re enjoying a night out?”

The program, led by York County Victim Services, ACCESS-York and Planned Parenthood, includes a free 30-minute training program. Bars are then given informative coasters and consent packets for their customers, filled with a condom, breath mint and tips for how to ask for consent.

But bartenders and servers still play the most important role: they are taught to be proactive and look out for certain warning signals, like a man sipping one drink all night while he buys a woman multiple shots. They can also watch for unattended drinks, offering to refresh or change the drink if they suspect the use of a drug.

The most striking element of this program is that bartenders are expected to actually step in and take action: discussing the situation with patrons and making sure they feel safe, asking patrons if they need a taxi or help calling a friend, walking them out of the restaurant or bar and even offering them a ride home.

This sounds like an amazing program to me, with one caveat: offering a drunk patron a ride home could lead to big trouble for the bartender, and stopping a sexual predator in his or her tracks could be potentially dangerous, so I’d hope there are safety measures put in place.

The key factor here, though, is the effort to counteract the bystander culture so common in bars, the “It’s not my problem” mentality. That, to me, is a great thing. What do you think, readers?

In the Fall, we ran a bar series during which a group of writers shared stories and memories of a particular bar. Although the series has technically run its course, we are always happy to feature work by our contributors that’s related to our blog.

In last Sunday’s New York Times, Helene Stapinski wrote a piece about Max Fish, a Lower East Side bar that was scheduled  to close at the end of January. In her article, The Max Fish Magic: Will It Travel Well? Stapinski recounts her history as a regular at the 21-year-old establishment, and what specifically makes it such a special place.

“Will Max Fish still be Max Fish if it moves?” she writes. “Can the magic be recreated in another space? Is it the people and bartenders, or the walls and the windows and the tin ceiling, that make the place cool — or some mystical combination of them all?”

Read Helene Stapinski’s posts for Drinking Diaries here.

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Le Pescadou

For a new series of essays (and poems), we have invited some of our contributors to share a story, an episode, an experience that took place at a particular bar–a place that they hold in their memory for one reason or another. We hope you will enjoy reading these stories as they appear each Monday.

by Camille Sweeney

The first time I stepped into Le Pescadou on the western edge of SoHo, it was love. It was Valentine’s Day and I was on a date. A saucy French wench (in drag) on stilts teetered up to us through the raucous bistro, playing an accordion, calling out, “Entrez, entrez vous!”

The mob at the bar hardly noticed us as we squeezed past them into a larger dining room in the back for dinner. I was smitten, but it would only be a matter of weeks before I had dispatched with my date – an entertainment lawyer with anger management issues – and years would go by before I would find my way back to the bar.

Maybe not so coincidentally, my return trip some time in the spring of 1999 was with Josh, the man who would become my husband. This time, I wasn’t marooned in the back room, furtively glancing at the doorway to the bar, but rather I was at the bar with Josh, drinking rounds of yellowy Pernod and meeting a whole new cast of characters.

It turned out Josh not only knew about the place, but also practically everyone in it.

“A local,” boomed Chuck, the owner from Montreal, passing through the front room, dispensing conviviality, bestowing on Josh the highest praise and fervently double-kissing his cheeks.

In fact, Le Pescadou was Josh’s living room. He lived only three doors away. As our relationship progressed, so did my relationship with the bar and all its strange inhabitants.

There was the Chinese-Irish tour guide, the indie filmmakers, the bullish English bondsman, the young widowed producer whose toddler scarfed down fries and toddled around playing choo choo train conductor, pretending to collect tickets (and sometimes real money) from the patrons. There were the trivia heads, the pop star and his tranny girlfriend, the aristocrats, some English, some Italian, some both. There was the former French race car driver and the former Czech model and the science editor and the jazz drummer and the record producer and the actor – all the actors – sharing the bar with the firemen whose firehouse was just up the block. (Those on duty, whipping back espressos, those off duty drinking the harder stuff, warming up before going “out out.”)

Rose, an old woman, who lived nearby, would make her way around the corner and stop to stare in the doorway. Age had baffled her about life but she was sure of one thing, she wanted a little glass of something at her neighborhood bar. Arms were always offered to help her get up the step.

At Le Pescadou, conversation was an art form. Arguments rose and were settled. Relationships bloomed and died. Advice was dispensed and predictions about life, love and the pursuit of happiness were made, some right, but just as often wrong. One man would travel over a hundred blocks to wile away an evening, drinking red wine and quoting Pound or Eliot or Shakespeare to whoever would listen—the drug dealer’s girlfriend, the electrician who moonlighted as a clown, the ad exec who kept a Town car and driver waiting at the corner ready to whisk him home to the suburbs.

Wherever else we’d go on New Year’s Eve, we’d start and end the night at Le Pescadou. Whenever we had cause to celebrate, we’d go there to share the news. Some fellow patrons drove over a hundred miles for our wedding upstate and some met our daughter in the maternity ward just after she was born. (Or, a week later when we brought her to the bar in her sling.)

When snow fell, we’d sit at the bar watching the drifts pile up and the city go quiet as we sipped whiskey neat. When the blackout flipped the switch on the East Coast one steamy August afternoon, we were part of a huge crowd, cheering and toasting Chuck, who’d somehow managed to keep the ice from melting and the drinks flowing late into the night by candlelight.

When tragedy struck, we’d gravitate to Le Pescadou as well. Chuck stayed open in the aftermath of 9/11 and the bar became a place where we mutually grieved and collectively healed. Some of our firemen never returned.

Financially, the place never fully recovered from 9/11. And, eventually, about mid-decade as with many small business owners, Chuck was forced to close. My husband and I would walk by, slowing down to peer into the papered windows, wondering how it could have happened and what would take its place. Inevitably, we’d spot someone else, another local, making his or her way past the empty bar, wondering like us, would life ever be the same?

Camille Sweeney, a MacDowell Arts Colony fellow, a somewhat repentant
initiate of the Rye Bucks Drinking Society at Kenyon College and one-time
blogger (The C Spot: A Guide to the Life Erotic), contributes frequently to
the New York Times and is at work on a novel.

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For a new series of essays (and poems), we have invited some of our contributors to share a story, an episode, an experience that took place at a particular bar–a place that they hold in their memory for one reason or another. We hope you will enjoy reading these stories as they appear each Monday.

by Leah Odze Epstein

I’ll never forget the first night I walked into the Royal Palm—or the Palms, as we called it. “New York, New York” played on the tabletop jukeboxes, reminding me of my favorite diner back home.

“Start spreadin’ the news, I’m leaving today. I want to be a part of it, New York, New York,” Frank Sinatra sang in his velvety voice, luring me in.  “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” This pretty much summed up how I felt about college.

After a high school career of pound-the-books nerd-dom, I’d decided that in college, academics would no longer take precedence (if my parents only knew…). I skipped the first few days of orientation to go to a Bruce Springsteen concert. Then I came in with a bang—greeted by the Leah Ooze sign on the door of my dorm room (my last name’s Odze), complete with a dripping puddle some helpful dorm-mate had drawn.

No matter. As I’ve detailed here at Drinking Diaries, I got drunk for the first time my first night of college. I blacked out, in fact. After that, I got a little smarter, but only a bit. Alcohol loosened my inhibitions, and by the second day, I took up with our helpful OC (orientation counselor). Call him Chaz.

Chaz was a junior, and by about night three, he began ushering me around to all the best campus sights: his apartment, his bedroom, and, when he realized he wasn’t going to get as lucky as he’d thought–his favorite bar.

I was thrilled that some guy wanted me. A junior, at that. And he wasn’t that bad- looking, if you could get past the nervous twitch. He was kind of bohemian and I liked that. I still wore acid-washed jeans, God love me, and pastels. My friend Julie soon put the kibosh on my wardrobe when she raised her eyebrow and said, “Pastels?” When I walked into the Palms, Julie’s words really hit home. From then on, I’d wear black and army green.

Did I mention that none of my fellow freshmen had ventured beyond the campus pub? I felt like a pioneer as I stepped into that smoky air, as if it were coating me with a new aura. Pool balls cracked, pinball machines plinked, but mostly, the place buzzed with constant conversation and beer bottles clinking, as if life at this bar were a constant toast to the fun of it all.

Kids sat four or six to a booth, head to head, at beat-up wooden tables with carvings and graffiti. And the smell. The Palms reeked of the beer that everyone drank—Rolling Rock in bottles, mostly—but also Budweiser and Gennee Cream Ale.

Chaz steered me to the back of the bar. Next to the pinball machines, a bald guy with a thin braid down his back sat cross-legged on top of a picnic table, holding court and smoking clove cigarettes, while people stood around him. One guy wore a beret, which thrilled me to no end, because trust me, no guy in suburban Maryland dared to wear a beret.

Yes, there were other Cornell bars, but as far as I was concerned, those weren’t for me. Let the boarding-school types and the upscale snobs have their chardonnay at Ruloff’s; let the jocks and the grunters line up their penny shots at Dunbars. From the day Chaz took me into the Royal Palm, the Palms–with its “I don’t care if you love me” attitude–was mine.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating (but not much) when I say I ended up there every night, after every party, after every study session or to avoid studying. Any excuse, and I was there, sharing a pitcher with my friends. Afterwards, we’d head to the corner deli to marvel drunkenly at the Potted Meat Food Product.

I met my first real boyfriend at the Palms. It was the one time I walked into the bar alone, over the summer, without the armor of my friends. I can’t remember why, but I walked right up to this guy and asked him if he was Swedish (he was). So was I (half). And that was that.

Years later, I went back to my twentieth reunion. My friend Julie and I made the Palms our first stop, in the middle of the day. I looked at her and said, “Thank God it’s the same.” The jukeboxes, the dartboard, the ceiling tiles, each one hand-painted by a Palms regular. We looked for things we’d scratched into the tables, or that had been scratched into the tables about us. At the Palms, you made your mark, literally, whether by writing on the walls or tables, or painting a ceiling tile. The bar belonged to me and Julie and everyone else who passed through.

The owners hadn’t changed a bit–they’d already aged, long ago, from all the cigarette smoke and beer. They seemed happy to see us, even the guy who’d caught me with my pants down in the men’s room one drunken night, when I had to pee and the ladies room was full. I remembered how he stood there relentlessly, refusing to get out, despite my hollering, holding the door open until I pulled up my pants and exited to the cheers of the growing crowd. Still, I forgave him. The grumpy owners added to the charm, and life in your late teens is so much more fun when you have authority figures to push against.

We visited again at night, and maybe that was our mistake, because once the people filled in, we could see they were all wrong: popular people with their fickle tastes, listening to current favorites instead of classics–“Living on a Prayer” blasted from the CD jukebox.

The crowd spilled out onto a back patio, which I never knew existed. Julie and I opted for the bar, where the crowd seemed older than the table sitters or the people milling around, walking up and down the aisles to see who was there. I almost joined them out of habit, before I realized that all our peers were long gone.

We sat down, and Julie whispered to me, “Don’t look now, but that townie guy’s staring you down.” I glanced over at Grizzly Adams to my left, preparing to tell him I was here to reminisce with my friend, so if he could kindly give us some space, I’d appreciate it, when he said, “Hey, Leah.”

“Um, hi?” I said, not wanting to be rude. I felt like I was back in college, at the dining hall after a drunken night, when a guy I didn’t know would say hi and I’d cringe, wondering what idiotic thing I’d done the previous night.

Well, this guy knew me, all right. He turned out to be the boyfriend. My first love. Sitting next to me at the bar. Unrecognizable, until he opened his mouth. Then, he became the same laid-back guy I remembered, minus the frat-boy attitude, plus a long beard and a tattooed girlfriend.

Different-looking. Southern sounding, even though he was from the North. But underneath, he had the same essential nature. Just like the Palms, which, I reminded myself, still had “New York, New York” on the jukebox, just waiting for someone like me to come along and press play.

Leah Odze Epstein is the co-editor of Drinking Diaries. She also writes middle grade and young adult fiction. You can follow her on twitter at @Leaheps.

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