Cosmopolitan is a memoir of the bartending life structured as a day in the life of Passerby, the bar owned and run by Toby Cecchini. It is, as well, a rich study of human nature—of the outlandish behavior of the human animal under the influence of alcohol, of lust, and of the sheer desire to bust loose and party. As the typical day progresses, Cecchini muses over a life spent in the service industry and the fascinating particulars of his chosen profession. He is by turns witty, acute, mordant, and lyrical in dealing with the realities of his profession, shedding plenty of light on the hidden corners of what people do when they go out at night. “Marvelous.  Toby Cecchini is no part-time, blender-drink-slinging woo-woo pouring dilettante. He's a professional. A hard, wise, funny, sad and unflinching look at the world from the other side of the bar.  Beautifully written, as fascinating for its backstairs account of hip restaurant/bar/lounge hijinks as it is for its unique perspective on human behavior. New York night life in all its true, hilarious, horrific, poignant and pinheaded glory.” -Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential “Toby Cecchini is something of an expert in creating hospitable environments: for drinkers with his bar, and for readers with this book. He writes with a quiet, lucid style about a profession that is generally loud and chaotic, and he makes almost every aspect of his bartending vocation, including, and perhaps especially, the bad behavior of some of his patrons, totally engaging. He has also captured an essence of New York life in the way that Midwesterners are, for some reason, uniquely able to capture it. Finally, though this book’s title is an overt reference to a particular mixed drink, what it embodies and anatomizes so well is an outlook on the world, in this case from behind a bar.” -Tom Beller, author of Seduction Theory and The Sleepover Artist Cosmopolitan is a memoir of the bartending life structured as a day in the life of Passerby, the bar owned and run by Toby Cecchini. It is, as well, a rich study of human nature of the outlandish behavior of the human animal under the influence of alcohol, of lust, and of the sheer desire to bust loose and party. As the typical day progresses, Cecchini muses over a life spent in the service industry and the fascinating particulars of his chosen profession. He is by turns witty, acute, mordant, and lyrical in dealing with the realities of his profession, shedding plenty of light on the hidden corners of what people do when they go out at night. "Cosmopolitan is a memoir of the bartending life structured as a day in the life of Passerby, the bar owned and run by Toby Cecchini. It is, as well, a rich study of human nature--of the outlandish behavior of the human animal under the influence of alcohol, of lust, and of the sheer desire to bust loose and party. As the typical day progresses, Cecchini muses over a life spent in the service industry and the fascinating particulars of his chosen profession. He is by turns witty, acute, mordant, and lyrical in dealing with the realities of his profession, shedding plenty of light on the hidden corners of what people do when they go out at night. TOBY CECCHINI is part owner of the bar Passerby, located in New York’s far-west Chelsea neighborhood. He began his bartending career in the mid-eighties at New York’s fabled bar and restaurant Odeon, where he began the Cosmopolitan cocktail revival. Cecchini has also written for the New York Times Magazine and GQ . He lives in New York City. CHAPTER I Rousing the Drunk In the town of Eau Claire in northern Wisconsin, where my father lives, there is an old wooden saloon called the Joynt on Water Street, just a short block off the Chippewa River. The Joynt functions to this day as all things to all people in that city. It's an egalitarian space by necessity. There is a satellite college of the University of Wisconsin there, cheek by jowl with the old Uniroyal tire factory and myriad paper processing plants. The Joynt has been by turns, and sometimes all at once, a student hangout, a faculty bar, a cop coop, the town's only gay bar, the beer hall for all the sweaty workers getting off their shifts at the factories nearby, a makeshift canteen for the elderly of the area, the only place in town to see live music, a pickup bar, and a quiet place in the afternoon or early evening to sit in the dentist's chair up front by the plate-glass window and read the paper. Beer has gone up to seventy-five cents a tap, from the quarter it was when I was growing up. That will buy you a choice of Leinenkugel's (locally known as Leinie's), Point Special, Berghoff Dark, and Grain Belt Premium Lager, the outsider from Minnesota. There is a neon sign above the bar that reads frankly no light beer. For most of my life I would visit Eau Claire for one week or so a year, and for the past twenty years, since I could drink in a bar, the trip meant dragg