B-girl [was D-girl]

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>... the closest I could get from the online OED is "beading", sense
>4 (no cites):
>
>4. A preparation for causing liquor to hang in drops about the glass
>or bottle when poured out.

I don't know whether this is the "beading oil"; I suspect it is, though.

I picture an unscrupulous bar manager who wants to maximize profits. He may
have B-girls, or maybe not. He maintains two bottles of (say) Jack Daniels
whiskey behind the bar. One (let's say the "A" bottle) is genuine; the
other (the "B" bottle) has been refilled -- say with water + neutral
spirits (or maybe "white lightning", any kind of cheap ethyl alcohol) +
coloring to approximate Jack Daniels + maybe some kind of additive like
fusel oil (maybe "beading oil"?). A drink from either bottle costs the full
Jack Daniels price, but the "B" bottle's contents are not only false but
also significantly less potent (water's cheaper than even cheap alcohol).
Favored or apparently savvy customers get "A" drinks; others (especially
including those who are already excessively drunk) get "B" drinks, which
are more profitable. We know this sort of thing occurs now, and probably it
occurred more 100 years ago, because of less effective government
oversight, etc. The manager can tell the bartender, "Give these guys 'B's"
or whatever. You can even picture him telling the new bartender: "It's easy
to remember, the 'B' bottle is the one with B-ding oil."

Now suppose there is a B-girl working in this bar. The sucker gets his
whiskey -- "A" or "B", depending on what the manager/bartender thinks he
can get away with, as always. But the girl orders something else, say a
cognac highball, something expensive and hopefully unfamiliar to the
sucker, and it's poured a little light, always from a "B" bottle, but it's
not (at least not at first) just tea or colored water, since the sucker may
ask if he can try a sip (he's been warned about these big-city folks
before) or perhaps just smell it. Depending on the sucker's condition, the
B-girl also reduces her alcohol consumption and/or increases his bill by
surreptitiously discarding part of each drink, or sending the glass back
half-full.

I haven't read Tamony's material: is it generally available (e.g., in a
conventional book or journal), or would one need to travel to Missouri to
read it?

There are a number of Web pages about modern B-girl activities. I saw an
interesting one focused on a modern Korean-type hostess bar in California:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.05.96/hostess-bar-9649.html

In this example, and in some similar ones in my own experience, the B-girls
are not acting as prostitutes (although many of them may hold other jobs
... in various professions). In modern times, instead of pouring bogus
liquor (the existence of which in the establishment may be very dangerous
to one's license), I think the tendency is to provide a genuine bottle --
say a $9 bottle of champagne priced at $100 or more -- and then to waste
much of it (upend it half-full into the ice-bucket, perhaps) so as to sell
another one, and then to pad the bill (hopefully the sucker will be drunk,
and later ashamed of himself, and won't argue about an extra $100). Some of
the local scholars who have been around a little more than I have may be
more authoritative on this subject.

-- Doug Wilson