Welcome to Another Round. Every month, we’re sharing one weird or wonderful story from our archives, and why it still matters.  

First up: Why the speakeasy just won’t quit.

The speakeasy has nine lives. It seems like every week on social media, I come across a new video about a new unmarked door and the dimly lit, 18th Amendment-core space that lies behind it. Personally, although I’ve had a fair amount of great drinks from bars with this premise, I can’t say that the Prohibition theme really speaks to me. You can only sneak behind a snack counter, barbershop or phone booth so many times before the conceit loses its luster.

But I seem to be in the minority. The speakeasy is undefeated. It both woos casual drinkers and earns industry accolades. It has gone from a very U.S. aesthetic to a global phenomenon. Mexico City’s Handshake Speakeasy, one of the buzziest and most awarded bars of the moment, is gilded and Gatsby-esque, an ode to Prohibition tucked into a basement. And the cohort is growing: Later this year, the team behind New York’s PDT, the blueprint in the speakeasy renaissance, is opening Kees, a subterranean, 20th century–inspired space whose name nods to the secrecy of the bar.

Why can’t we seem to quit this aesthetic? Six years ago, Punch contributor Nick Fauchald wrote about why these bars persist, and why guests continue to be delighted when a bar is (kind of) a secret. All still rings true today. Read on for his take on how we got here in the first place.

Although bar design has clearly evolved in the past two decades, from the Prohibition-themed spaces of the aughts (Edison bulbs, faux bookshelves, “secret” passwords), the term “speakeasy” remains shorthand for any bar with an inconspicuous entrance. And those entrances have only become more elusive. Today we have bars behind barbershops (Blind Barber in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles), porn shops (Adults Only, Los Angeles), bookstores (Williams & Graham, Denver), coffee shops (Jettison, Dallas) and Irish pubs (Eleven Twenty-Two, Paso Robles). The question is why, even long after the Edison bulbs have burned out, does this element of speakeasy culture—the unmarked entrance—continue to thrive? Why, some 80-plus years since the repeal of Prohibition, are we still pretending the feds might bust down the door?

The answer—at least part of it—dates back 20 years ago to a harmless misinterpretation of the term “speakeasy.”

I know a lot of critics in the U.S. have speakeasy fatigue, but I find it interesting to see how people in other countries find inspiration in the Prohibition era and filter the stories of that time through their own lens. [Sastrería Martinez in Lima] is a marvelous example of that—you can see the Boardwalk Empire influence, but it’s not overwrought or too kitschy. It feels rooted in the here and now as much as it whispers of the past.”

—Punch contributor Emma Janzen on Instagram

P.S. Are speakeasies too played out? Hit reply to share your feelings.

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