A "cocktail bar" should offer great tasting, well-balanced cocktails made using quality ingredients and fresh juices but as the style of bars vary enormously...
My pet peeve with cocktail bars is using pre batched ingredients. I can understand it for extracting fruit juices before opening and liquors with infusions or washes, but I don't want a Word that came out of two bottles. I have experienced this most often in New York, but it seems to be spreading.