I hate the pretension that goes into labels that bartenders have for themselves nowadays. Some examples:

• Bar chef - The only chef is the one in the kitchen. The title chef means chief in French and is reserved for the guy that runs a kitchen. Period.
• Mixologist - Last time I checked, the only "gists" I knew were people that had gone to school and gotten some sort of scientific degree.
• Cocktail Stylist - Might as well be a hairdresser and totally excludes the world of mocktails.

Look, I don't object to those scholars of drink finding some sort of way of differentiating themselves and advertising the level of dedication they have to their craft (perhaps it's time for a "Master of Bartending" or "Master of Cocktails" degree, like we have Master of Wine or Master Sommelier or Master Chef), but there's a certain pretension in abandoning the term "bartender." A bartender is someone you chat with about your day, a fixture of the restaurant, someone that is familiar to you like no one else in the front of the house . The new titles have a certain distance to them that implies that the drink comes first, not the customer.

Personally I know that when I go into a bar I don't want to deal with a bar chef, mixologist or cocktail stylist. Half the time the drinks that I've had from aspiring "bar chefs" have not been memorable. There's a reason that the classic cocktails are classics. Just sit me at a bar where the bartender can make a great Tom & Jerry, Ramos fizz or rye Manhattan.