The Boston Globe: Maine’s New Drinking Culture

In restaurants and bars, the cocktail has come back and evolved, alongside the sprouting of microbreweries

From The Boston Globe:

John Myers, a traditional saloonist and cocktail historian, tends bar at The Grill Room, a steakhouse with a wood-burning grill in the center of the Old Port here. Myers, looking like a Wild West gunslinger with his wool vest and bushy beard, stands in the lamplight - a sommelier of cocktails ready to shake or stir.

I’m sitting on the other side of the bar, deciding what to order. I know that the bar man specializes in the tried and true.

I ask him what defines a classic cocktail.

“The great ones are spirit driven,’’ Myers says. “They possess the spirit of the spirit, the essence of the spirit. A margarita shouldn’t taste like limeade, it should taste like tequila.’’

...

For the full article, visit www.bostonglobe.com.