"If you don't have a bartender at your party, you're a loser," said a guy whose job is "to get models and Saudi royalty into hot clubs," to an NYT Style reporter at a party in a cramped Williamsburg apartment.

The New York Times' report on the hot new trend of hiring bartenders for rinky-dink house parties takes place in a 400-sq-ft studio in "a new warehouse conversion along the Brooklyn waterfront" in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Mad Men-alluding hostess hired a fancy bartender a party with a 24-person guest list. Everybody was impressed.

For the next four hours, Mr. Villani stood there, not to make special cocktails, but to pour a vodka punch or a rum eggnog into clear plastic cups, trimmed with sugar-coated cherries and cinnamon sticks.

His presence did not go unheralded in the apartment, in a new warehouse conversion along the Brooklyn waterfront, although the intimate cluster of guests could have easily served themselves. "In my opinion, if you don't have a bartender at your party, you're a loser," said Dustin Terry, who lives a floor below Ms. Argiro and said his job was to get models and Saudi royalty into hot clubs. "The bartender brings class and sophistication."

Ladling your own drinks is for losers and poors, like people who live in Queens! Or, as another member of the "arty-chic crowd of D.J.s, stylists and publicists" put it,

"I feel very sophisticated at this party," he said. "And I usually feel like a complete dirt bag."

Yeah, that about sums it up. Anyway, good on you, bartender Villani. If you tune out Dustin Terry, it's not a bad way to make a buck. [NYT, Background image via Ciorra Photography's Flickr]