Zooming in on the home bar

When it comes to drinking, the real action has always been at the bar. Cocktail destinations mixing 16-ingredient showstoppers, hotel lounges, restaurants, sports bars or corner joints where everybody knows your name—it’s never mattered much so long as it was a bar. A place to gather, share, meet, commiserate, mourn, cheer and celebrate. 

Until now. Bars everywhere are shuttered, thanks to the spread of Covid-19 and the resulting stay-at-home orders across the country. Happy hour now means a virtual meet-up via Zoom or Houseparty, or an appropriately social-distanced driveway affair, or solo drinking, sometimes in the morning and at scale if you’re Ina Garten.