How Maine Gets Its Drink On

Considering it's nearly closing time on the 78th anniversary of the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment repealing prohibition, what better time to check out the Boston Globe's take on Maine's "new drinking culture":

John Myers, a traditional saloonist and cocktail
historian, tends bar at The Grill Room, a steakhouse with a wood-burning grill
in the center of the Old Port here. Myers, looking like a Wild West gunslinger
with his wool vest and bushy beard, stands in the lamplight - a sommelier of
cocktails ready to shake or stir. I’m sitting on the other side of the bar,
deciding what to order. I know that the bar man specializes in the tried and
true. I ask him what defines a classic cocktail.

- John C.L. Morgan

Related: Did You Know? (February 20, 2008)