The Gay Bars Helpg Shape Popular Drkg Culture | PUNCH

Contents:

• GAY BAR, MEET COCKTAIL BAR
• HIGHLY ANTICIPATED GAY BAR, COCKTAIL, OPENS THIS FRIDAY ST. PETE
• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• THE 13 BT GAY BARS BARCELONA
• CHIGO GAY BARS AND CLUBS
• LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY

GAY BAR, MEET COCKTAIL BAR

In a 2009 article for queer publitn Between the L, wrer Camper English laments the lack of “uture cktails” at gay tablishments, potg to the stereotype that “we’re supposed to be trendy people. ” Havg vered cktail culture sce 2006, English believ drks programs at gay bars have remaed remarkably static as the bar and rtrant dtry have drastilly evolved. “It dawned on me that none of the gay bars were movg the same directn as other bars — they were jt dog the same old flavored vodka drks, most whout h juic or even drk men, ” English tells VePair.

“The days, there are some gay bars g h juic their cktails, at least, and more of the rtrants gayborhoods are gettg right. But seems generally that gay bar cktails are about where nightclub cktails are terms of average qualy. Of urse, the high-volume drks programs at some gay venu functn primarily as social lubrints.

While the mixology movement has brought well-ma Manhattans and Mojos to hotel bars, cise ship bars, piano bars, mic ftival bars, and, hell, even airplane bars, 20 years after the cktail revolutn lnched NYC, gay bars are one of the last plac Ameri you n’t always fd a good drk.

HIGHLY ANTICIPATED GAY BAR, COCKTAIL, OPENS THIS FRIDAY ST. PETE

Wh so many prri to juggle, om shiftg socenomics to vanishg venu, gay bars and cktail culture are now at a historic crossroads.

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

“We thk of cktail bars as a place to go and have a curated experience, ” says Alex Negranza, a gay bartenr and director of operatns at Tongue-Cut Sparrow and The Pastry War Hoton. “Historilly, we don’t have that associatn the gay bar scene bee, for so long, gays were never afford the luxury of a place to dulge. Much has changed, and ntu to change, sce bars like San Francis’s Black Cat and New York’s Stonewall opened unrserved neighborhoods to provi refuge to gay muni the 1950s.

Namely, the steady closg of the “gay wage gap. ” Acrdg to the latt studi om Pntial and the Harvard Bs Review, the average queer Amerin — albe mostly cis whe gay mal — now earns as much if not more than their straight unterparts. Then there’s the fact that today’s “gayborhoods, ” like Chelsea New York, Boystown Chigo, or Montrose Hoton, are among their ci’ wht and most affluent.

THE 13 BT GAY BARS BARCELONA

Morn gay bars, likewise, no longer hab the same cultural and physil spac as their precsors. Some queer bartenrs are hant to brg the craft cktail movement, wh s hand-cut ice and elevated price tags, to gay and lbian bars bee there are so few of them left.

“The gay bar isn’t nearly as ubiquo as we’d all like to be, so swchg the beverage program at even a uple of gay bars the cy mak accs to queer spac even more limed, ” says Yi Chen, bartenr at The Aviary NYC. “If gay bars are tly to rema about muny, the msage sent by cktail-specific gay bars is one of alienatn to those who n’t afford , which impli a culture that I personally fd problematic.

Others believe queer tablishments wh qualy cktails would provi a wele alternative to hard-partyg gay nightlife.

CHIGO GAY BARS AND CLUBS

“I don’t really go to gay bars anymore, ” Negranza says. In 2016, Garrett McKechnie opened Mattache Society, a gay cktail bar Los Angel, but sadly closed shortly thereafter.

LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY

Fortunately, early 2019, chef Angela Dimayuga, formerly of Missn Che Food, opened No Bar, a “new-wave gay bar” New York Cy’s Standard East Village Hotel. When Shawn Vergara and his sister Tiffny Vergara Chung revamped their Brew bar San Francis’s historic gay neighborhood, The Castro, earlier this year, they wanted to reprent s lotn.

Now lled Detour, after a historic gay club, serv elevated cktails an tergeneratnally clive space. There was fely somethg missg, and I wanted to show that gays n participate cktail culture, too. Cal Laman, founr of the cktail nference Chigo Style, believ we uld soon see many more gay-iendly or -foced cktail bars like those McKechnie, Dimayuga, and Vergara have opened, but says those terted urtg the muny need to do so thoughtfully.

The succs of tablishments like No Bar and Detour shows that a lite middle ground for gay cktail bars n and should exist — as long as queer people are empowered to open them. “It’s que different om earlier s, ” says Shepard, “pecially pre-Stonewall, when simply beg willg to serve gay men or lbians was enough to secure a grateful clientele, regardls of the qualy of the drks or the tablishment.