“The idea of drinking before dinner has its roots in the Prohibition era. When the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act were passed banning alcohol consumption, citizens would host “cocktail hours” or “happy hours” at a speakeasy (underground drinking establishments) before eating at restaurants where alcohol could not be served. Cocktail lounges continued the trend of drinking before dinner.
The push against drunk driving and alcohol abuse has curtailed the use of the cocktail hour to some extent. In the 1980s, bars started providing free hors d'oeuvres to lower the blood alcohol content of patrons. Glasgow has banned happy hours to reduce binge drinking, as has the Republic of Ireland. Even the U.S. military got in the act, when in 1984 they abolished happy hours at military base clubs.
Despite the controversy, cocktail hour still exists around the globe. Today in the United States, "Cocktail Hour" culture consists largely of junior and mid-level
professionals getting together for a drink to unwind after work.” ~from Wikipedia, bastardized
Not anymore. Bring back the cocktail hour, please. I wasn't able to drink in the eighties, so I don't remember it and thus technically I can't miss it, but I miss the idea of it. We won’t drink and drive, we promise. (Vancouverites never drive downtown anyways, we like to pretend we’re in Manhattan.) So give us back our after-work drinks.
I don’t know when this tradition died, but Vancouver, you are a city desperately in need of a cocktail hour. There are thousands upon thousands of randy young professionals with lots of money here. After all, someone is buying up $400,000 studio condos. In fact, 100,000 people live in the downtown core; that’s a higher population density than LA, San Francisco, and Manhattan. The only cities that come close to comparison are Hong Kong and Rio.
So how are all these people unwinding at the end of a long workday? They’re rushing home, getting on their computers, pouring a glass of wine, and surfing through other singles online. Deliver me. We’ve allowed technology to transform our city into the ultimate high school dance where the sexes are lined up awkwardly against opposite walls. No, scratch that, it’s worse: we’re not even in the same room anymore.
Toronto has a cocktail hour. Manhattan has one. Why don’t we? I blame stratification. Left to pick between substandard sports bars and higher-end lounges that won’t get hopping until the weekend, most of the city’s best looking potential cocktailites are sighing in defeat and shuffling off to a sweaty 40 degree Bikram’s studio, mat in tow. There's no middle ground. What are the alternatives? Jostling arm-in-arm for bar seating with the mougars* on the roof at Joe Fortes? Getting peanut shells in your Steve Madden pumps at Madison’s? Suddenly sliding around in the sweat of 40 other people is looking more appetizing.
*man cougars
Bar owners take note: there are not enough good after-work places downtown. Women will not go to a place where there is carpet on the tables. Men will not go to places where their only drink options have names like “The Flirtini” and come in complicated glasses. And no one, male or female, over twenty-six years of age will step foot into a place where the bartenders pour shooters into people’s mouths.
A bar is a concept. It is not a club, and it is not a lounge. It has food, but it does not have edamame, or anything requiring a sugar cage or a reduction or even truffle oil. You can order beer, but they have wine that doesn't come in a tetra pak. There is a bar to belly up to. There are charming bartenders and cute waitresses to act as social lubricant for the patrons. And there are cocktails, not just sugary martinis. I'm very feminine, thank you. But if I want a Jack and Coke, I don’t want to be stared at as though I just crawled out from under a Chevy at a work-release program in the local women’s penitentiary.
Publicans: if you build them, they will come. If they come, they will mingle. I implore you, Vancouver, bring back the cocktail hour. We can handle it. I promise.
For my friend C, who remembers fondly with me a time when there was a cocktail hour, and even cigar girls.
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