Shelf Life

Bartender, Mix Me A Modern: Liberation, Cosmopolitanism, and Class in Interwar Cocktail Culture

A cocktail has always been more than a drink. Just like other forms of consumable goods, it acts not just as nourishment, but also a cultural performance, a symbol of economic values, and a reexamination of identity. Cocktails have, on multiple occasions, shaken up our values and notions, and twisting and garnishing them with style. In the shadow of World War I, the 1920’s and 30’s particularly saw the evolution and rise of cocktails and its corresponding culture as a global phenomenon, especially in urban centers. The interwar cocktail scene transformed drinking into a modern ritual, especially for the upper middle classes. This was reflected in the burgeoning pool of cocktail-related literature and media, including O. Blunier’s The Barkeeper’s Golden Book, published in 1935 in Switzerland. As illustrated within this manual, through the semiotics of drink names, cocktail culture encouraged new forms of sexual liberation, cosmopolitan identity, and class, all enforcing the new concept of postmodern consumerism.

Between the Sheets: Sexual Liberation and Gender Performance

With an exponential increase in the drinks being developed in the 20’s and 30’s, these cocktails needed provocative and alluring names in order to sell. Many of these names that appear in The Barkeeper’s Golden Book had (thinly veiled) sexual meanings, as you could now go up to a bar and order a: Between the Sheets, Maiden’s Blush, Bunny Hug, Hanky Panky, Whip No. 1, Morning Delight, Virgin, and so on. These titles subverted the modesty norms of the lingering Victorian era, going hand in hand with the new ritual of leisure drinking, once something that was overlooked. During this period, public drinking became more acceptable for women, who were once discouraged from imbibing in commercial spaces, unlike their male counterparts. The cocktail party and lounge enabled co-ed mingling and flirtation, becoming an avenue for both freedom and risk. Before this, the co-ed gathering took the form of a dinner party– a quasi-public and stuffy affair in which interactions between men and women were scrutinized and essentially scripted. This period of liberation did not come without backlash and scepticism, however. Not only was there Prohibition in America, but in early 20th-century Europe, widespread temperance movements rooted in moral, religious, and public health reform sought to curb alcohol consumption. Cultural fears about female drinkers—such as anxieties that “girl cocktail drinkers” would lose their willpower or virtue—illustrate how female autonomy at the bar became a flashpoint for moral panic.

Manhattan: Cosmopolitan Identity and Fantasy

As cocktails were a fusion of liberation and leisure, they also became a symbol of global modernity, signaling not just pleasure, but the glamor of cosmopolitanism and cultural capital. In The Barkeeper’s Golden Book, we see drink names like: Manhattan, Aviation, Broadway Melody, Harvard, Honolulu, and Monte Carlo Imperial, suggesting worldly sophistication, both for the consumers and the establishments which served them. Blunier’s book was published in Zurich, including English, French, and German text, evidence of its multilingual and international audience. The cultural fascination with cocktails meant that drinking one wasn’t just about taste—it was about performing sophistication. Ordering something like a Martini or Fifth Avenue aligned one with American urban glamour, especially attractive to Europeans during and after Prohibition. In addition, even if some customers did not have the means to travel, these cocktails allowed for them to claim a piece of this lifestyle, feeling included in this trend of cosmopolitanism. This was not just about location, rather it was about the right kind of “modern” personality: witty, mobile, chic, and cultured.

Prince of Wales: Class, Performance, and the Gentleman Barkeeper

In tandem, cocktail culture both allowed for a democratization and a reinforcement of social status. In his The Barkeeper’s Golden Book, Blunier clearly states that being a bartender requires being “well-bred,” “more than average education,” with “polish,” “refinement,” “psychological and diplomatic intuition,” “tact,” and “discretion.” With the evolution of cocktail lounges as third places and the reemergence of a leisure class through conscious alcohol consumption, a barkeep became a cultural mediator. Bluiner highlighted that the bartender was positioned between upper-class guests and behind-the-bar service, and had to present himself as a proper gentleman. Cocktail names were not immune to this, as they became status signals themselves. Some listed in The Barkeeper’s Golden Book referenced royalty: Grand Royal, Queen Elizabeth, Royal Smile, Prince of Wales, Princess Mary– suggesting elite cultural association. But many also celebrated professions and self-made figures with titles like: Journalist, Roy Howard, Artist’s Cocktail, Grand Slam, Gene Tunney, Jack Kearns— suggesting a shift toward more democratic and meritocratic values. This duality of honoring both inherited privilege and earned appreciation acts as a snapshot where traditional aristocracy and modern celebrity development coexisted. Cocktail bars and manuals such as Blunier’s created a performative environment where everyone had an opportunity for upward mobility and could signal cosmopolitan knowledge through drink choice and style. Cocktail parties also shook up traditional host-guest status as gatherings became less formal and more improvisational. This shift meant that “success” at a cocktail party relied on what were considered soft skills, such as charm, wit, and adaptability, all of which went hand-in-hand with new professional and social expectations in modern urban life.

The Last Word
The cocktail culture of the interwar period (1920s-30s) twisted gender roles, class expectations, and cultural boundaries. Not only did its power lie in alcohol, but in the signs it created: a drink as a metaphor, a name as an identity, a party as a theater. Today, the legacy of these now-classic cocktails carry through not just on our menus but in how we understand freedom, intimacy, and consumption. Broadly, this cocktail era was a precursor of the postmodern age and left us eternally thirsty for something new.

For Further Research:

Altermatt, Urs. “Conservatism in Switzerland: A Study in Antimodernism.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 14, no. 4, 1979, pp. 581–610. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/260177 .

Blunier, Otto, editor. The Bar-Keeper’s Golden Book. Morgarten-Verlag, 1935.

Craddock, Harry. The Savoy Cocktail Book. Constable & Company, 1930.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. “A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Some Structural Characteristics of Group Drinking.” Human Development, vol. 11, no. 3, 1968, pp. 201–16. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26761722 .

Mayer, Kurt. “Cultural Pluralism and Linguistic Equilibrium in Switzerland.” American Sociological Review, vol. 16, no. 2, 1951, pp. 157–63. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2087688.

REND, GORDON. “SWITZERLAND PREPARES.” Current History (1916-1940), vol. 45, no. 2, 1936, pp. 65–71. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45337744.

Rich, Rachel. Bourgeois Consumption: Food, Space and Identity in London and Paris, 1850–1914. Manchester University Press, 2011. Chapter 3, “Dinner Parties: Ideal versus Experience,” pp. 97–127.

Seaton, Anthony V. “Cocktail Culture in the 1920s and 1930s: Prefiguring the Postmodern.” Hospitality Research Journal, vol. 18, no. 2, Feb. 1994, pp. 35–52. SAGE Journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/109634809401800204.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New American Library, 1953.

Wondrich, David, and Noah Rothbaum, editors. The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Oxford University Press, 2021. Oxford Reference, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199311132.001.0001/acref-9780199311132.