The kids are all tight.

A few days ago Ann Althouse linked to a New York Magazine story about young professionals getting their drink on in a most serious fashion -- the martini. It's behind a paywall, but we get the gist from a Brooklyn bar owner: 

I watch these kids hammering martinis and I’m like, good Lord.... I think it is a perfect pressure valve for everything people are feeling. Everywhere you look you see war, you hear ‘keep your mask on,’ or ‘don’t keep your mask on’ — people are tired of toeing lines. They’re just like, 'Give me something that transgresses the bounds'.

As Althouse wrote, "Is 'wellness' dead? Ironic if all these precautions in the name of health led to a higher and higher tolerance for alcohol."

This isn't the first time the martini has made one of its many comebacks. In the 1990s, when I worked in the magazine biz, the martini and the cigar bar were suddenly all the rage. It tied in with the widespread fin de siècle zeitgeist of the decade. Even the Trump-owned Hyatt Grand Central had a cigar bar, and Trump himself famously neither drinks nor smokes. It wasn't long before the anti-smokers got their feet back under them and the cigar bars and shops faded or became displaced. The death of the Nat Sherman store down the street near Bryant Park in 2020 was a blow to the recreational smoker. 

Anyway, the martini got another boost following 9/11, when pressure valves also seemed desirable. Personally I can mark that era's end to 2005, when I was at a large business meeting to announce that the great company I was working for (yay!) had just been acquired by an evil company I had once fled (boo!). As we exited, the reception area was full of waiters with martinis for celebration. I dodged through them and fled to the safety of my desk. There was nothing to celebrate. Further, the evil company was so damned square that if they were pushing martinis, the drink's days in the sun were over. 

Which brings us to now. I find it interesting that young folks would want a pricey drink that is essentially solid booze. It's great if you want to get drunk fast, sure. The thing is, even experienced drinkers know to treat the martini with respect, not slam them back like some girly Bailey's shot. I suspect that most of these kids wind up even worse than Nora Charles did in her first scenes in 1934's Thin Man, after she tried to catch up with the six martinis Nick had already consumed. 

The difference is that, being in an old movie, Nora just woke up the next day feeling ill with vague memories of the night before. She didn't throw up all over everything, drunk-dial all her friends, throw up again in the taxi, start a fistfight with the driver, wake up with some ugly stranger, and feel completely wiped out and full of shame all the next day.

Brooklyn cab drivers, take warning! Put plastic sheeting all over the backseat of your cars.