{image1}Chicagoland-based writer Thomas Connors loves bars, and one suspects there is no greater joy for him than nursing a classic cocktail in the bar at the Inter-Continental or The Drake along Chicago's Magnificent Mile.

Talk to Connors and you'll also find his effusive passion also extends to corner taps, kitschy places and no-nonsense bars like New York's Subway Inn. The fact is, that like most outgoing, sociable people who like a stiff drink now and again, Connors thrives in the lively -- and sometimes not so lively -- atmosphere of the public house in all its incarnations.

But Connors reserves a special place for those grand old hotel bars and so it makes perfect sense that his first book would focus on those.

"Meet Me In The Bar: Classic Drinks from America's Historic Hotels" - available in all bookshops -- travels across America to explore the watering holes in the country's great hostelries. Lovely photography, classic recipes and descriptions imbued with Connors' enthusiasm and knowledge make the book great fun and a great guide for travelers both regular and sporadic.

We thought we'd introduce you to "Meet Me In the Bar" with its description of the Lobby Lounge in The Pfister. But you'll have to buy the book to get the lounge's recipes for its apple martini and French 75 and to learn about the other bars in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and beyond.

From "Meet Me In The Bar":

Ah, Milwaukee -- land of beer and bratwurst! Well, brats remain a staple (and a damn good one, at that) but most of the breweries have long since departed. Like other older cities that have seen their primary industries fade and their populations shift to the suburbs, Milwaukee is reinventing itself. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century factories and warehouses are being retrofitted as high-end housing and the locals have learned anew that eating out and shopping well are a good part of what city living is all about. This sense of the city as a place to revel in, rather than run from, is certainly something earlier Milwaukeeans appreciated, After all, Milwaukee was thriving long before Chicago big-shouldered its way to national prominence. Its successful tanners, brewers, and grain merchants lived in fine mansions, and beginning in 1893, exhibited themselves socially at the Pfister Hotel.

Erected by immigrant Guido Pfister, who made a fortune in tanning before getting into the hospitality business, the Pfister is a solid Romanesque Revival edifice with a vaulted, triple-story lobby. When it opened, the hotel boasted a formal dining room dominated by an impressive bar, and a gentleman's lounge with its own bar (there were also two billiard rooms, one for each sex). In 1926, Pfister's son Charles opened the English Room, a small pub serving steaks and chops; he even invented a house specialty he called Indian Punch, which he had hoped to bottle and sell nationwide.

In the 1950s, a good piece of the lobby was closed off and turned into a lounge called The Columns, where toga-clad waitresses served drinks and a centurion watched the door. Later renamed Café Ole, it remained in place until the 1990s, when preparations were made to restore the hotel for its centennial in 1993. Ole's walls came down and the lobby reassumed the graceful grandeur it had possessed 100 years earlier.

Although there was no bar in the lobby when the hotel first opened, the owners have successfully created one without compromising the Victorian-era opulence that makes the Pfister one of the grand hotels of the Midwest. Set off by a low, wrought-iron railing patterned after those that ornament the grand staircase and mezzanine, the Lobby Lounge is anchored at one end by a large hearth hood studded with ornamental grapes and cherubs. The entrance is marked by the figures of two insouciant pikemen cast in bronze.

The space is outfitted with plump sofas and black lacquer chairs and is punctuated by faux marble columns topped with gilded capitals that join with the golden-hued walls to create a pervasive, jewellike glow. Sitting in the Lobby Lounge, one feels awash in that exquisite luminosity that descends at the end of a perfect summer's day.

From "Meet Me In The Bar" by Thomas Connors. Copyright (c)2003 by Stewart, Tabori and Chang. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.