Cosmopolitan is a memoir structured as a day at Passerby, the bar owned and run by Toby Cecchini. As his typical day progresses, from the almost pastoral quiet of opening the bar and setting up, to the gathering rush of customers dropping in after work, to the sheer madness of catering to a crazed crush of fun-seekers, Toby Cecchini muses over a life spent in the service industry and the fascinating particulars of his chosen profession. Topics touched on include dealing with regulars, both welcome and not; sex and the bartender; cocktail connoisseurs (and drinks he refuses to make); learning the bartending ropes of the Odeon when young and newly arrived in New York; the sheer man-killing pace of keeping those drinks coming at flood tide; and the manifold varieties of weirdness and bad behavior that every bartender has to learn how to manage.Of particular cultural interest is the author's account of his reinvention of the Cosmopolitan when he bartended at the Odeon - and his dismay as the drink went on to be bastardized by many thousands of bartenders and became a highly dubious indicator of urban sophistication. Read Less