The Rainbow Room bar , or the Promenade Bar, as it was officially known, opened in 1987 as part of a grand renovation of the art deco landmark Rainbow Room nightclub, atop New York City’s Rockefeller Center. It rapidly became the headquarters of a revolution in cocktail making. Desiring a classic bar that would match the space, Joe Baum (1920–1998), the legendary restaurant impresario who was the Rainbow Room’s owner, directed his head bartender, Dale DeGroff (1948–), to take his inspiration from nineteenth-century bartender Jerry Thomas and his 1862 Bar-Tender’s Guide. After some difficulty procuring a copy of the book, long out of print, DeGroff took inspiration from it as he reintroduced classic techniques for mixing drinks, revived many pre-Prohibition and deco-era cocktails, and set new standards for the American-style bar. A host of devotees went on to adopt these standards and apply them in bars, nightclubs, and restaurants around the world. See DeGroff, Dale; and Thomas, Jeremiah P. “Jerry.”
Baum insisted on fresh fruit juices, top-quality spirits and liqueurs, fine glassware, and showmanship. Gone were the soda guns and prefab mixers that had depressed cocktail quality at countless bars over the years. The Rainbow Room became known for bespoke cocktails, assembled painstakingly and presented with a flourish. When the recipe called for an orange or lemon, DeGroff—employing a trick he had seen bartenders at Chasen’s in Los Angeles use to make the “Flame of Love” martini—lit a match to ignite the volatile oils in the peel as he squeezed, setting off a small burst of fireworks. See Flame of Love Martini. There were no jiggers; bartenders learned to pour accurately, by eye. See jigger.
Cocktails were listed on their own menu, a revival of another old custom that soon became a standard feature at better bars. The early menus, with twenty or more cocktails, were edited down to a more manageable dozen or so, which included familiar classics like the Manhattan, the Old-Fashioned, the Margarita, and the Martini; neglected classics like the Sidecar, the Jack Rose, and the Bronx; and antiquarian cocktails known only to devotees: the Between the Sheets, the Ramos Fizz, the Sazerac, the Stork Club, the Peach Cobbler. See Manhattan Cocktail; Old-Fashioned Cocktail; Margarita; Martini; Sidecar; Jack Rose; Bronx Cocktail; Between the Sheets; Ramos Gin Fizz; Sazerac cocktail; and Stork Club.
The surroundings were elegant. Designed by Hugh Hardy of the firm of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, who worked with Baum and the graphic designer Milton Glaser, the bar was intimate in scale, with plush, deco-inspired carpeting and upholstery, a curved mahogany bar, and, suspended from the ceiling, just above DeGroff and his bartending team, a red and black model of a streamlined ocean liner designed by Norman Bel Geddes. Perched on the sixty-fifth floor of the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center, the Promenade Bar resembled a 1930s Hollywood stage set, with the twinkling lights of Manhattan’s skyscrapers visible through the windows.
It was a place of relentless experiment. DeGroff, with a nod to the bartenders of yore, made a point of introducing his own inventions, many of them tributes to the great drinks of the past. His signatures included the Ritz, a cognac-based take on the champagne cocktail; the Fitzgerald, a summer gin drink; and the Millennium, a tropical cognac cocktail served in a Martini glass. See Ritz Bar.
The press took notice, as did professionals in the food and drink industry. From his base at the Rainbow Room, DeGroff disseminated his philosophy through seminars, workshops, and walking tours of innovative bars (“cocktail safaris”) that caught the attention of aspiring New York bartenders, notably Audrey Saunders (the Pegu Club) and Sasha Petraske (Milk & Honey), who helped spark a cocktail renaissance. See
See also DeGroff, Dale; and Cocktail Renaissance.
DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002.
Goldberger, Paul. “The New Rainbow Room: S’Wonderful!” New York Times, December 20, 1987.
Grimes, William. “A Bartender Who Stirs and Shakes but Allows No New Twists.” New York Times, March 27, 1991.
By: William Grimes