What makes a bar a best bar in Esquire’s ever-growing hall of fame? It’s the feeling: There is no other place you’d rather be right now. How that emotion arises is a mystery, however. For the past twelve months, our lead barflies, Jeff Gordinier and Kevin Sintumuang, with an assist from many friends, set out to solve it. Mysteries aside, these are the places that made them want to go back.
Atlanta
Ticonderoga Club
Is this corner of a food court really where Peach State cocktail kings Greg Best, Regan Smith, and Paul Calvert have decided to set up shop? Gaze upward and the theatrical lighting through the beams may give you the impression that you’re embedded in a sitcom soundstage: The Iceman Cometh meets Cheers. After a few minutes, though, you’ll forget all that and simply feel as though you’ve come home. Is there a friendlier bar in America right now? Hard to imagine, just as it’s hard to imagine another place where excellent cocktails are presented with such unpretentious joy. What you’re drinking: The Ticonderoga Cup, a blend of aged rum, cognac, sherry, fresh lemon, and a housemade pineapple cordial. 99 Krog Street Northeast —Jeff Gordinier
Athens, Georgia
The World Famous
White-oak essence wafting along America’s southern cities’ sidewalks leads to both establishment and renovation. Just like tree rings, the World Famous has something to say. Lodged in the middle of “Hot Corner,” once a roaring cluster of African-American-owned businesses, the chess-piece-looking building is both gastro-dive-bar and music locale. A bar life where the first-rate fare entwines with hip-hop acts and a whiskey stash? Solid. Pro tip: Order the poutine and Creature Comforts Automatic pale ale (a tribute to local restaurateur Dexter Weaver and REM’s Automatic for the People album). 351 North Hull Street —Nicole A. Taylor
Austin
Nickel City
As soon as I sat at the bar, which is partially padded by yellow vinyl as if it were baby-proofed for shot-happy drunks, I was told . . . shot specials. Fernet. Sombra mezcal. Old Forester. And that’s when it’s revealed: This is not your dad’s dive of off-brand well spirits. But precious cocktail joint it is not. Go ahead and order that shot at 3:00 p.m. or enjoy a dangerously delicious frozen hurricane, one of the most popular drinks on the menu—no one’s judging. Pro tip: The branded Nickel City hats they sell are pretty cool. 1133 East Eleventh Street —Kevin Sintumuang
Baltimore
The Elk Room
Too many speakeasy-type places still reek of the Gatsby remake. The Elk Room, praise Leo, is not that bar. Grab one of the six bar seats and meet Shaun Stewart and Andrew Nichols. The duo make inspired drinks of and with nearly anything—Stewart once won a cocktail competition using Jägermeister. What you’re drinking: The Poe’s Raven, which is inspired by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s rum-ham episode, is a good place to start. 1010 Fleet Street —Brady Langmann
Charleston, South Carolina
The Living Room at the Dewberry
Any hotel can fill itself with midcentury-modern furniture and call itself cool, but there’s something more deeply transportive about the JFK-era vibe of this lobby bar. For one, as the austere exterior will tell you, this was originally a federal building from the 1960s—the bones speak truth. As do the barmen in crisp white jackets behind the tiny five-seat brass bar. The drinks, which come in substantial glassware, are precise and beautifully brooding—the Dark as Night, a cognac-based cocktail with walnut liqueur, is as moody as they come. The name of the place is apt: You’ll want to settle in for a while. Pro tip: Don’t skip the old-fashioned, either. 334 Meeting Street —K. S.
Chicago
Prairie School
While this issue of Esquire was in the process of shipping to the printers, we learned that Prairie School was shutting its doors before the end of May. It's a shame if you never got to see it, because the place was a beaut.
Conceived by Jim Meehan, who helped codify the speakeasy motif in 2007 with PDT (his saloon-behind-a-phone-booth in New York’s East Village), Prairie School is altogether different: an elegant expression of midwestern pride, from the grain spirits it serves to the way sunlight is, yes, allowed into the room. Named after a philosophy of architecture associated with Frank Lloyd Wright, it feels like the stylistic opposite of PDT, with high ceilings and big windows and a cocktail list that is, like Chicago itself, both slap-your-back friendly and shoot-the-moon ambitious. What you’re drinking: The Lemon Ice cocktail, which is inspired by sweet slush served at Johnnie’s Beef in suburban Elmwood Park. 326 North Morgan Street —J. G.
Daphne, Alabama
Manci's Antique Club
During Prohibition, it was rumored, cars weren’t the only things getting lubricated at Italian immigrant Buster Manci’s filling station. By 1936, the pretense was gone, or maybe just morphed: Soon manci’s antique club was the shingle that welcomed customers to his dark-wood dive. Pack rat Manci filled every inch with junk—oh, I mean antiques—including one of the world’s largest collections of Jim Beam decorative decanters. There’s plenty to explore, but beware, female first-timers who enter the ladies’. That cutout of Adam may have lift here on the fig leaf shielding his genitals, but peeking triggers a bar-wide alarm. The offender’s walk of shame back to her barstool runs through the gantlet of applauding locals. Or so I, uh, heard from a friend. What you’re drinking: The Bloody Mary, garnished with a pickled string bean, okra, olive—and applause. 1715 Main Street —Beth Ann Fennelly
Detroit
Sugar House
There is a certain undeniable divinity in a perfectly made daiquiri. At the sweet-sour boozy intersection, the daiquiri gets the right of way. Sugar House is a place that understands this. It shows proper reverence for the drink by pricing it for the everyperson at a mere seven dollars. But too much of a good thing is a bad thing, so when you’re ready to jump off the refined-sugar wagon and into the waters of distillation, you can continue your rum journey at a bar laden with rums worthy of sipping slowly. There is a menu with a long list of classic cocktails, plus their own fanciful concoctions. 2130 Michigan Avenue —Stephen Satterfield
Lexington, Kentucky
Ona
The small, mingling crowd outside the hazy bar sign on the narrow side street gives it away, but otherwise Ona would be hard to find. That’s what first drew me to this secretive, dimly lit bar that’s full of dark corners made for disappearing; I like a bar that feels like a decent hiding spot. Large hanging plants covering the wall of windows make it seem like you’re lounging inside a green, leafy terrarium. What you’re drinking: Because the Bluegrass State is bourbon’s birthplace, I tend to bet on whatever the friendly bartenders are cooking up brown-liquorwise. 108 Church Street —Ada Limón
Los Angeles
Bibo Ergo Sum
The weird corporate-plaza location adds to the dimension-altering head trip that is Bibo, an impeccably designed symmetrical space that has a Viennese-café-meets-Wes-Anderson-set vibe. The cocktails, like the whole experience, have an uncanny way of feeling retro and futuristic at the same time. What you’re drinking: The odd and wonderful High Note, a drink with toasted-sesame tequila, coconut cream, and Thai chili. 116 North Robertson Boulevard —K. S.
Old Lightning
The name nails it: Old Lightning specializes in vintage spirits that electrify your palate. The bar represents the culmination of an obsessive ongoing quest for owners Pablo Moix and Steve Livigni. Old Lightning is sealed off behind a blank industrial door in a parking lot. Immediately after you cross the threshold, you surrender your new lightning: No phones allowed. This explains why you probably haven’t seen any images of the room on Instagram, but we’ve been inside its warm, hushed embrace, and we can assure you that it’s a chamber worth giving up social media for. What you’re drinking: A flight of vintage bourbons might run you $250 and not once will you complain about the price. 2905 Washington Boulevard —J. G.
Miami
The Anderson
It’s like three bars in one: First, a former piano bar—dark and unabashedly of the eighties. Next, an outdoor hipster hangout à la the great Broken Shaker. (The same company, Bar Lab, is behind this place.) Then, in the way back, a tiny rum shack that feels like it was plucked out of the Caribbean and placed in a parking lot. The Anderson is all of the different shades of good-time weirdness that Miami can express outside the sheen of South Beach. What you’re drinking: In the rum shack? Anything with rum. 709 Northeast Seventy-ninth Street —K. S.
Minneapolis
Marvel Bar
Believe it or not, the cocktail world can get kind of monotonous. Barrel-aged this, fat-washed that—sometimes the circus tricks can leave a drinker feeling jaded. If you’re thirsty for true innovation, though, Marvel awaits. The imagineers behind its bar seem to be forging a new path forward, one that makes way for the nuanced magic of how ingredients interact: nori paired with Laphroaig, and Bénédictine swished with salt. What you’re drinking: I had a bourbon Negroni that had somehow spent time marinating on a bed of charcoal. I expected an ashtray; I got a bonfire. 50 North Second Avenue —J. G.
GYST Fermentation Bar
Putting the words fermentation and bar in the same name may seem like a redundancy, since all alcoholic beverages exist as the result of fermentation. But Gyst sisters Ky and Mel Guse nudge the idea a step further, devoting their entire enterprise to the funk of microbial transformation. Pickled eggs and midwestern cheeses tango with ciders, sour beers, and natural wines that promise to put you in a good mood while replenishing your microbiome. What you’re drinking: Are you man enough for a Lam-bucha? (That’s Lambrusco rosé mixed with the Gyst kombucha of the moment.) If it’s beer you prefer, try pronouncing the Brekkefossensvann from Minnesota’s own HammerHeart. 25 East Twenty-sixth Street —J. G.
Nashville
Bastion
In Nashville, south of Broadway’s three-chords-and-the-truth honky-tonks, there’s a place called Bastion. It’s in a manufacturing zone in Wedgewood-Houston, a neighborhood making room for the art galleries and creative types moving in. Bastion is a good fit here. It’s a lively room decorated with whimsical and sundry art objects that appear to have arrived from a well-curated flea market. There’s vintage video games, a fast-moving table-hockey game, and a beer-and-a-bump boilermaker on the cocktail menu. But you came here for a proper drink like the tiki-inspired Tree Climber or the Family Business, a riff on the classic manhattan. 434 Houston Street —Kevin McDonnell
New York City
Dante
Don’t let that “registered landmark” jazz scare you off. In spite of its age (it opened in 1915) and its pedigree (the likes of Patti Smith and Bob Dylan have occupied its stools), Dante is an affable place. It wears its legend lightly but takes its cocktails seriously. The Negroni and its variants get granular attention, but if you want to ease into history more gently, there’s the effortless elegance of a tall glass of white vermouth kept cold with a stack of frozen grapes. What you’re drinking: Everyone must try the Garibaldi, the unlikely sorcery of Campari and frothed-up orange juice. 79–81 MacDougal Street —J. G.
George Washington Bar
It just opened this past winter and it already feels a hundred years old. That’s because the room, with its floor-to-ceiling sweep of mahogany and its center-stage portrait of the presidential OG, was constructed in the 1920s as a hotel library. In more recent years, though, the Bruce Wayne–ish lair has housed nothing more debonair than a paper shredder. Now spruced up (but not slicked down), the George Washington is serving some of the most delicious cocktails north of Fourteenth Street, thanks to head bartender Ben Rojo, whose stirring hand doesn’t falter even with the father of our country judging his performance all night. What you’re drinking: The Sweep the Leg finds a concordance between shochu and a clarified elixir made from pineapple and Thai basil. 23 Lexington Avenue —J. G.
Oakland
Ordinaire
Ordinaire is a nest for afternoon drifters. It doubles as a bar and wineshop, and those who go browsing for bottles can’t help but notice the paperbacks tucked in between the labels: A Clockwork Orange, Out of Africa, Lolita. Something about the presence of those pages coaxes you to linger with fellow hooky-playing professionals. Maybe you don’t recognize the names scribbled on the blackboard (Jordi Llorens, Hervé Villemade), or maybe you do because these days you follow natural-wine vignerons the way you used to follow bands from Seattle. What you’re drinking: If you see the words Pierre Cotton + Brouilly, get that and buckle up. 3354 Grand Avenue —J. G.
San Francisco
True Laurel
David Barzelay knows how to throw a party. He does so nightly at Lazy Bear, his Michelin-starred gastro-fete that unspools each evening with cocktails upstairs before everyone proceeds to the communal tables below. At True Laurel, he flips the script, putting the spotlight on cocktail virtuoso Nicolas Torres, who is known for going to great lengths to perfect his conjurings. What you’re drinking: The Quince-añera. It involves a Mexican spirit called sotol that’s infused with roasted quince; to that Torres adds a syrup generated from quince that’s come from a sous-vide bath. 753 Alabama Street —J. G.
Savannah, Georgia
The Diner Bar at the Grey
Just as the food at chef Mashama Bailey’s the Grey is rooted in influences and ingredients from Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean converging in the American South, the adjacent bar she has built (with business partner Johno Morisano) focuses on the Atlantic trade routes. That means you’ll find flights of Madeira and port and rum and gin. Does it feel like a bus depot? It is. But there are no longer any Greyhounds, so feel free to miss your imaginary connection. What you’re drinking: The Dock of the Bay to explore the pathways of port. 109 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard —J. G.
Washington, D.C.
Brothers and Sisters
The new Line hotel has cemented itself as party central in the partiest of D. C. neighborhoods, Adams Morgan. And the heart of that scene is Brothers and Sisters, the sprawling bar/restaurant that fills the lobby of a former church with the right mix of travelers and locals. The drinks come from veteran barman Todd Thrasher (of Alexandria’s PX), so the high-wire-act drinks like the It’s Not Just for Osaka Anymore, which has vitamin-C powder, and the Ivy Started It (vodka, yuzu, lemongrass, white pepper) have a complexity that is dialed in to perfection. Pro tip: Grab a post-drink meal at Erik Bruner-Yang’s tiny, stand-up-only tachinomiya-style restaurant in the hotel. 1770 Euclid Street Northwest —K. S.
