Three Historic NYC Bars Unite for a Night of Barroom Lore

New York has never lacked places to get a drink. This week, the stories behind those bars get their turn at the microphone.

Tomorrow evening, Tuesday, October 27, representatives from Fraunces Tavern, Gage & Tollner and the Dead Rabbit will gather at Fraunces Tavern, 54 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, for “History of Bars in New York,” an event organized by the Alliance for Downtown New York. The program runs from 6 to 8:30 p.m., with doors opening at 6. The conversation will trace the city’s drinking culture from Revolutionary War taverns to the modern craft cocktail revival, examining how the places where New Yorkers drink have evolved alongside the city itself.

The setting is fitting. Fraunces Tavern, the event’s host, is the oldest bar and restaurant in New York City, in operation since 1762. It will share the spotlight with newer arrivals, including the Dead Rabbit and Overstory, according to Time Out New York, which first reported the details of the evening.

Leading the discussion is Dan Saltzstein, a deputy editor at The New York Times and the author of “That’s So New York: Short (and Very Short) Stories About the Greatest City on Earth.” He will be joined by St. John Frizell, a writer and bartender who co-founded Gage & Tollner and its upstairs tropical cocktail destination, Sunken Harbor Club.

The panel also includes Jack McGarry, managing partner of the Dead Rabbit, who brings expertise in Irish whiskey, cocktails and pub operations. Rounding out the lineup is Barry Smyth, beverage director at Fraunces Tavern, who selects the bar’s 650 whiskies along with its local craft beers and wines. He also created the tavern’s Presidential Punch, a credit that feels well suited to an evening steeped in colonial-era history.

The format puts the people who run these establishments in the same room, sharing how New York’s drinking culture takes shape from behind the bar. Books by the presenters will be available for purchase for anyone who wants to keep reading after the glasses are cleared.

Admission is $30, and all proceeds benefit City Harvest. The ticket includes light bites and two cocktails created especially for the evening, and nonalcoholic beverages will also be available. Tickets are sold through Eventbrite.

For a city that has always understood the bar as something closer to a civic institution than a mere business, the pairing of a hunger-relief charity with an evening of barroom history has a certain logic. A bar has long been where New Yorkers gather, argue, celebrate and, on occasion, make history. On a Tuesday night in late October, a few of its best-known keepers will say how that tradition got here.