Cocktail Culture in the 1920s and 1930s: Prefiguring the Postmodern

Abstract

Cocktail drinking and cocktail parties constitute one of the most novel international consumer cultures to have emerged in hospitality in the twentieth century, yet one which has attracted little academic attention. This article provides a sociological appraisal of cocktail culture that focuses on its semiotic representations and its revolutionary impact upon social life. The analysis suggests how the social representation and influence of the cocktail phenomenon foreshadowed many features identified as distinctive to modern consumer cultures, and can be seen to prefigure processes currently associated with characterisations of the postmodern.

The article coincides with the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the United Kingdom Bartenders’ Guild and the launch of its trade paper, The Bartender.

Keywords

cocktails drinking postmodernism semiotics consumer culture

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