I once attended a dinner at Jan and Warren Adelson’s home. Their New York gallery is known for its collection of American Impressionists and the work of John Singer Sargent. As I moved through the house during this charity event for the Hudson River Museum, I began to recognize paintings at a glance—Sargent and Eakins, a drawing by Ingres, a grisaille gouache by Homer, a medallion by Saint-Gaudens. Nothing was labeled. It was a home, not a museum. But the work announced itself.

Then, over a desk, there was a painting that stopped me. At first, it looked like scratches of color. After a moment, a waterfall began to resolve, but what held me was the color—a very particular Veronese green. And then it clicked: Twachtman. John Henry Twachtman. Adelson confirmed it.

I’ve always been struck by how specific an artist’s palette can be. Not just a preference for color, but something closer to identity.

Every story about artists and bars eventually needs a morning-after chapter. This is it.

It’s tempting to treat drinking as part of the atmosphere, like bad lighting or loud music. Something incidental. Something that belongs to the room rather than the body. And for a while, it does. Conversations loosen. Arguments sharpen. People stay later than they should. Work gets talked about intensely, if not always made.

But alcohol is not neutral. It never was.