Your fearless Fingers editor graduated college in 2010, young, dumb and full of original-formula Four Loko. I moved to New York City and got a job at a food/drink website called Thrillist, which kept offices in an open-floorplan office in a converted Soho loft. Talk about a cliché.
Actually, let’s talk about clichés. Specifically, bar and drinking clichés of that era. From my vantage point as a Brooklyn-based listicle jockey on the bleeding edge of the digital-media disaster, I saw a lot of ‘em, from the death rattle of hipsters’ blue-collar LARP with Pabst Blue Ribbon, to #menswear-adjacent speakeasies fat-washing everything in sight, and so much more. You were alive and drinking last decade, right? (If not, it’s actually illegal to be reading this, you’re under arrest.) Reminisce with me. What were the worst bar/drinks clichés of the 2010s?
This prompt is inspired by a Bluesky post earlier this week from the Discontinued Foods account, which posed the same question about food/restaurants. Unfortunately, with the exception of "epic bacon" culture (if you can even call that culture), all the trends they highlighted are basically all still in force in most American cities' restaurant scenes today. I feel like drinks trends have actually evolved quite a bit since then, but you may not. Ah, disagreement! The in-house habanero-infused well tequila of any good comments-section cocktail.
Not your cup of tea natural wine that tastes like foot Gatorade? All good, we’ve got plenty else to chit-chat about. To wit:
Commenting privileges unlocked for everyone, but please upgrade paid if you’re reading for free. Every subscription helps, man. Bring me your organic vodkas, your retro-Playboy bathroom wallpapers, your Txakolis in twee-ass not-wine glasses, all yearning to be mocked with the benefit of hindsight. It’s your Fingers Friday Thread!
P.S.—Don’t forget to grab your limited-edition “United States of Boilermakers” from Fingers x Pints and Panels! It’s original art from two independent drinks-media cReAtOrS (me and the extremely talented Em Sauter) that will look terrific hanging over your barcart. Or wherever, really. Get yours now!
Hey unrelated to any of this but I forgot to mention — I'm still looking to speak to current or recently former employees of the Brown-Forman Corporation, especially those in the marketing and design departments, and/or who work or recently worked on the firm's whiskey portfolio from the corporate side. My email is <dave@dinfontay.com>, find me there. If NDAs/retaliation/etc. are a concern, I can protect your identity.
Two nights ago I walked by a restaurant here in Richmond called 52 Social. Guy I was with turns to me and goes "I've lived ten blocks away from this place for a year, never once had the urge to go inside."
Cocktail bars going with the "Disney Speakeasy" theme yet everyone knows the location of the front door. Also, the over-proliferation of beer gardens. Most of them are/were bad and make Bavaria weep.
Where were you drinking when these first started popping up?
Yeah, the lack of proper beer gardens was a problem then and now. I remember spending a lot of time at Loreley on the Lower East Side between 2010-2015 or so, and it was simply not very good? But they had Wifi (which was unusual back then, in the pre-hotspot-your-phone days) so we'd cut outta work on Fridays sometimes and finish up there.
DC - mainly 14th/U St and in Shaw (if you're familiar). Some were good but most got by on the speakeasy vibes and mediocre old fashioneds.
There were a few beer gardens in DC in the 2013-2015 time frame that had a good selection of German beer, were chill, and that you could get into any time of the day or night. Then the concept blew-up in popularity, they started springing up all over town, and became loud, bro-filled messes with lines out the door.
I am somewhat familiar — I graduated from UVA so I had friends who wound up in DC after college. DC's drinking scene has always been a bit of an enigma to me, honestly, but at that age I was basically just getting dragged to like... Town Hall, or whatever that wretched place was called. And the Guards. And there was a bar in a townhouse somewhere?
I was enamored with Disney speakeasies (love that term too) in the early 2010’s. My first was at Noble Experiment in San Diego in maybe 2008(?) and it felt new and novel having to push a fake keg wall to get to the hidden bar. By the time I made it to the granddaddy PDT in New York in 2014(?) it felt goofy, played out and way too much work to get a drink
When did this start in your neck of the woods? (Also where is your neck of the woods?) I remember thinking bartenders breaking out the butane torch was still fairly novel circa like... 2013-ish in Brooklyn?
In 2015 the Matador in San Francisco got their hands on an Icee machine and perfected a grownup slushy margarita (oxymoron?). They seem to have been patient zero in this town for a plague that lasted a coupla years, until everyone got tired of cleaning the machines.
I gave up bars when I realized that I would never be able to get a Bloody Mary made with crushed heirloom tomatoes. cayenne's off the bush, celery from the garden and a bacon swizzle stick. The bacon is optional, but if you want a Bloody Mary around my house you have to pick it yourself.
Your'e so right, those did start showing up last decade huh? I kind of think of them as a fixture of the holiday season but they're a fairly recent invention.
The first one in DC was 2015(?) and was crazy popular. At its peak, people would line up for hours before opening and would remain through the night. Eventually it got to be too much and the bar owner killed it. Nobody has successfully picked up the ball and ran with it since it went away.
it seems to be a franchise operation, they sell you a kit with tiki mugs, recipes, menus. I visited the one in Jackson MS's nicest hipster bar (back room of a vintage drugstore oh my), and the drinks were pretty grown up, even if silly looking.
I’m sure there are places where they have a cooler vibe, but down here they always seem to pop up in a similar way and similar location as pop-up halloween shops.
as a person who still lives and works in this hell every single year, i can wholeheartedly agree with you. holiday bars are psychotic and the patrons are only there to instagram their glassware.
These are still going (a couple have opened here in Seattle in past year, but not sure how successful they are) but the get-a-RFID-card and pour-your-own-beer from the LED tap wall places. I think I experienced my first on a trip to NYC in 2017(?) and then they started popping up everywhere
Semi-related, remember the stock-exchange-themed beer bars? Where your table's consumption corresponded to the performance of your "stock" on a big LED board that everybody in the bar could see?
Some rooftops that are "a thing", I.e. too crowded, insane lines to get a drink or the bartender's attention, I've seen some that have even ticket voucher systems that you end up not using. $30 cocktails = all bad
Hey unrelated to any of this but I forgot to mention — I'm still looking to speak to current or recently former employees of the Brown-Forman Corporation, especially those in the marketing and design departments, and/or who work or recently worked on the firm's whiskey portfolio from the corporate side. My email is <dave@dinfontay.com>, find me there. If NDAs/retaliation/etc. are a concern, I can protect your identity.
Select bangers from Fingers followers on social platforms:
— "450 tap lines, none of them clean"
— "Bartenders dressing like Mumford & Sons while the band played on the stereo and people thought it was the coolest thing"
"copper mugs disguising two ingredient cocktails"
"Boilermakers on the gentrification font menu"
Mason jars. Bars called "social" at the end of the name
Two nights ago I walked by a restaurant here in Richmond called 52 Social. Guy I was with turns to me and goes "I've lived ten blocks away from this place for a year, never once had the urge to go inside."
Actually maybe it was Social 52. Whatever, you get the point.
Cocktail bars going with the "Disney Speakeasy" theme yet everyone knows the location of the front door. Also, the over-proliferation of beer gardens. Most of them are/were bad and make Bavaria weep.
"Disney speakeasy" is such a good term for that shit, I'm definitely using that in the future. I wrote this awhile ago for a collaboration with Garbage Day, sorta relevant: https://www.fingers.email/p/speakeasies-everywhere-nor-a-four
Where were you drinking when these first started popping up?
Yeah, the lack of proper beer gardens was a problem then and now. I remember spending a lot of time at Loreley on the Lower East Side between 2010-2015 or so, and it was simply not very good? But they had Wifi (which was unusual back then, in the pre-hotspot-your-phone days) so we'd cut outta work on Fridays sometimes and finish up there.
DC - mainly 14th/U St and in Shaw (if you're familiar). Some were good but most got by on the speakeasy vibes and mediocre old fashioneds.
There were a few beer gardens in DC in the 2013-2015 time frame that had a good selection of German beer, were chill, and that you could get into any time of the day or night. Then the concept blew-up in popularity, they started springing up all over town, and became loud, bro-filled messes with lines out the door.
I am somewhat familiar — I graduated from UVA so I had friends who wound up in DC after college. DC's drinking scene has always been a bit of an enigma to me, honestly, but at that age I was basically just getting dragged to like... Town Hall, or whatever that wretched place was called. And the Guards. And there was a bar in a townhouse somewhere?
I was enamored with Disney speakeasies (love that term too) in the early 2010’s. My first was at Noble Experiment in San Diego in maybe 2008(?) and it felt new and novel having to push a fake keg wall to get to the hidden bar. By the time I made it to the granddaddy PDT in New York in 2014(?) it felt goofy, played out and way too much work to get a drink
Can I cite a booze-adjacent cliche? Every cocktail bar selling $12 plates with two “house special” deviled eggs, the custom touch being candied bacon.
Oh my god the fucking candied bacon boomlet was so real. That deserves its own dissertation.
You ever read this? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-06/bacon-why-americas-favorite-food-mania-happened?embedded-checkout=true
Negroni Summer, Hazy IPAs, bacon in cocktails, and I think hard kombucha and hard seltzer arrived on the scene toward the end of the 2010s.
Yeah I put hard seltzer's mainstream breakout at summer 2019. That sound about right to you? That's when this Atlantic piece ran, which I feel like really underscored the fact that it was fully in the normie zeitgeist: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/why-summer-white-claw/596920/
I had just way too much fuckin rosé between 2013 and 2015.
Rosé hit city-dwelling Northeastern millennials with email jobs like a fucking FREIGHT TRAIN, man. You're right. Where were you when you got run over?
New York. I have no further comment.
Are you pleading the Fifth on your historical rosé consumption? In a comments section?
No you just 100000% nailed it with your response that perfectly encapsulates who I was...and I guess I'm still a millennial with an email job!
Ahaha I see. I was like "damn what the hell did rosé do to Mark last decade?
Smoked . . . Everything. As in this smoked old fashioned (mezcal martini, hot spiked apple cider) is so cool bro!
When did this start in your neck of the woods? (Also where is your neck of the woods?) I remember thinking bartenders breaking out the butane torch was still fairly novel circa like... 2013-ish in Brooklyn?
Came here to say this
Susannah... smoke 'em if you got 'em?
Anyway this just opened in Richmond lol: https://www.yelp.com/biz/smoke-and-barrel-kitchen-richmond
Fayetteville just got its first speakeasy. No smoked cocktails yet. But it's only a matter of time.
In 2015 the Matador in San Francisco got their hands on an Icee machine and perfected a grownup slushy margarita (oxymoron?). They seem to have been patient zero in this town for a plague that lasted a coupla years, until everyone got tired of cleaning the machines.
I'm envisioning at least a half-dozen Thrillist SF stories about doomed bars that opened with the sole purpose of jumping on this trend.
In Portland the Bunk Bar has the Iceberg, a margarita slushie in a Rainier.
I gave up bars when I realized that I would never be able to get a Bloody Mary made with crushed heirloom tomatoes. cayenne's off the bush, celery from the garden and a bacon swizzle stick. The bacon is optional, but if you want a Bloody Mary around my house you have to pick it yourself.
I actually feel like bougie, overwrought Bloody Marys were a huge think in the 2010s! Which is not exactly what you're describing, I guess.
No not overwrought all trad just fresh. The bacon swizzle stick is a bit bougie but usually I can't be bothered so it is celery.
imperial stout beer floats, preferably from a burger bar with "EST. 2011" prominently displayed on its logo
Haha right, in like... 2013.
Beer floats, fuck. Talk about being of an era.
Holiday pop-up cocktail bars with $20 awful sweet cocktails and enough decorations to induce a seizure
Your'e so right, those did start showing up last decade huh? I kind of think of them as a fixture of the holiday season but they're a fairly recent invention.
The first one in DC was 2015(?) and was crazy popular. At its peak, people would line up for hours before opening and would remain through the night. Eventually it got to be too much and the bar owner killed it. Nobody has successfully picked up the ball and ran with it since it went away.
and going strong: https://www.miraclepopup.com/locations
it seems to be a franchise operation, they sell you a kit with tiki mugs, recipes, menus. I visited the one in Jackson MS's nicest hipster bar (back room of a vintage drugstore oh my), and the drinks were pretty grown up, even if silly looking.
Yeah a bar here buys into the franchise every year. I don't think it's this specific franchise, but it's one of them. What a business model, eh?
I’m sure there are places where they have a cooler vibe, but down here they always seem to pop up in a similar way and similar location as pop-up halloween shops.
as a person who still lives and works in this hell every single year, i can wholeheartedly agree with you. holiday bars are psychotic and the patrons are only there to instagram their glassware.
'Tis the season (to post Close Friends stories of caaaaaaaah-yoot Santa mugs full of questionable nog!)
These are still going (a couple have opened here in Seattle in past year, but not sure how successful they are) but the get-a-RFID-card and pour-your-own-beer from the LED tap wall places. I think I experienced my first on a trip to NYC in 2017(?) and then they started popping up everywhere
I went to one of those in Honolulu 2019 and there was also a barbershop quartet singing Xmas songs
Semi-related, remember the stock-exchange-themed beer bars? Where your table's consumption corresponded to the performance of your "stock" on a big LED board that everybody in the bar could see?
Its a Nitro Stout!
No you are
Aviations. I liked them, but they became cliche and then rapidly passé and now I feel embarrassed ordering one.
When was the inflection point? And, where were you drinking?
Boston, mostly, let's say 2016?
It was kind of fun when I saw them in a bar in Zürich, somehow that was far enough away from home turf that I didn't feel constrained the same way.
(but I had a kid in 2012 so the rest of the decade is kind of a blur)
Rooftops
I don't know that this can qualify as a bad cliché? I feel like drinking on a rooftop is a) timeless and b) pretty sweet. Elaborate?
Rooftop in general = good
Some rooftops that are "a thing", I.e. too crowded, insane lines to get a drink or the bartender's attention, I've seen some that have even ticket voucher systems that you end up not using. $30 cocktails = all bad
Best hit list of the 2010s trends:
Shit Bartenders Say
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB2aVzmPxxM
Man, remember when you could just launch a blog titled "Shit _____ Say" and get a book deal? What a time.
I was at the Passenger in DC right after the video came out, and all the drink names on the board were taken from that video.
"Aquavit Bores Me"
"Herbal Notes"
"I'm Really Into Amaro Right Now"
"That'll be $18.50"
How am I the first person to mention HARD SODA. Remember A-B's Best Damn?
Maybe not a cliché the way other things on this list are, except that the entire concept felt like a cliché from the jump
Not Your Father's Cliché
I don’t care what anyone says, I invented the Mezcal Negroni in 2012.
BRB, revising some Wikipedia articles...
Much appreciated, my dude!
"jazz brunch". Kentucky Derby parties
I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the ubiquitous pickleback.