Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life is a memoir of the bartending life structured as a day in the life at Passerby, the bar owned and run by Toby Cecchini. It is, as well, a rich study of human nature—of the sometimes annoying, sometimes outlandish behavior of the human animal under the influence of alcohol, lust, and the sheer desire to bust loose and party. It's not a pretty picture, but it's always compelling through the gimlet-eyed gaze of the author. 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 funseekers, 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.

Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life is the hip, behind-the-scenes look at the frenzied yet undeniably fun atmosphere of that great establishment—the bar—and Toby Cecchini is, by turns, witty, acute, mordant, and lyrical in dealing with the realities of his job, 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

In the tradition of Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential, a sometimes eye-opening, sometimes elegant, sometimes hilarious memoir of the chaotic yet exhilarating life of bartending.