I don't know about America, but in England the transition from horizontal 
to perpendicular drinking was connected with the rise of the gin palace in
the early nineteenth century. In essence, whereas the tavern had been the 
publican's home into which he invited paying guests, the gin palace was a 
shop which sold its products over the counter either for home consumption 
or for rapid drinking standing up on the premises. There is some material 
about this on pp. 177-8 of the British edition (the American edition is
still "forthcoming") of my book "Drink: an informal social history" and a 
much fuller discussion in Mark Girouard's architectural history, "Victorian
Pubs" (Yale UP, 1975).