Many bartenders I know have cultivated a certain sense of authority. It makes sense to me that it happens naturally. We bartenders are often seen as fonts of information, whether it's dating advice or a piece of trivia to settle a bet. Goodness knows I've certainly done quite a bit of work on that end. After all, you're reading this column, right?
One of my very favorite cocktails is the Pegu Club Cocktail. Indeed, it's the main reason I became fascinated with modern craft bartending over T.G.I. Friday's-style flair bartending. I wrote about the Pegu in this very column some time ago. It's a bracing gin-based cocktail from the late 1920s, invented at a British officers' club in the jungles of Burma as an antidote to stifling tropical heat.