Good Vibes, Good Drinks?

CHOW.com has an interview with a bartender who believes that in order to make good drinks you have to have a positive mental attitude. Not for customer service reasons, but because you impart emotional energy into each cocktail along with the ingredients.

I can only establish a pattern that if every single person makes the same drink and it tastes differently—slight variations in melted ice aside—then there’s something different about that person. Bartenders need to ask themselves, “Where was I mentally when making this drink? Was I doing it mechanically, like riding a bicycle? Or was I aware?”

Surprisingly, this bartender is in New York.

The worst bars in New York

Ask Metafilter has a post:

What are the dirtiest, smelliest, fakest, dullest, most overpriced, most violent, least interesting, gayest, straightest bars in New York? In other words, interpret worst anyway you like, but let us have your best suggestions for places we should ordinarily never consider drinking in.

Read the responses or contribute here.

Top-Shelf drinking in New York

The current Best of New York issue of New York Magazine lists some interesting, high-end facets of bars:

• At Pegu Club, they serve the martini in small glasses to keep it colder, but also include a mini-carafe chilled on ice with more of the booze so you can refill it. This way, you get a cold martini, but also enough booze to keep you satisfied with the quantity. Additionally, they chill their olives so they don't warm up the drink.
  
• At Milk & Honey they "spank" the mint in their hands to break the capillaries, rather than twist or muddle it in the mojito, so that you get lots of mint in the drink without the wilty taste that comes from crushing it too much.
• At Death & Co., they use house-churned butter in the hot buttered rum.