One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map  Here, where old tiki bars go to die, is the real thing. Esquire Magazine 50 Sand Island Access Rd, Honolulu, HI Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map The floor-to-counter multitiered speed rack, stocked with rarities like maraschino liqueur, straight rye whiskey, Dubonnet, and Cynar, is a dead giveaway: The Zig Zag knows drinks says Esquire Magazine 1501 Western Ave, Seattle, WA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map More ancient Chinese apothecary than bar, Fu Kun Wu claims its herbal supplements provide 'female radiance' and 'anxiety relief.' All we can vouch for is the taste. 5410 Ballard Avenue NW; 206-706-7807 5410 Ballard Ave, Seattle, WA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map From the great Jerry Thomas, who jumped ship in 1849 and got right to mixing, to the late, legendary Bruno of the Zam Zam, who'd kick you out if you ordered anything but a gin martini, San Francisco has always had great bartenders. Even today, there's no shortage of talent in town, what with -- to name a few -- the marvelous Alberta at the Orbit Room Cafe (1900 Market Street; 415-252-9525; go early and be sure to try one of her aviations), Jacques and Marco, the tequila wizards at Tres Agaves (130 Townsend Street; 415-227-0500), the crusty traditionalists at Absinthe (398 Hayes Street; 415-551-1590; have an Old Pal), and even Duggan at Frisson (244 Jackson Street; 415-956-3004), who thinks nothing of tossing a bit of squid ink into the mixing glass. hat said, the best San Francisco bartender is Bobby 'C. Bobby' Cook, the pixilated gent who has owned and presided over the Owl Tree since 1977. The owls are all over the place -- hundreds of 'em, stuffed, painted, sculpted, macramed, you name it. The place looks like something out of a dream sequence in an early Richard Widmark film. But an eccentric line of decor will get you only so far; to achieve true greatness, you've also got to be rude to the customers when they need it (which is usually), slip in a friendly remark when they least expect it, and, of course, be able to transform a buck fifty's worth of middle-shelf hooch into a vision of a better life. C. Bobby qualifies on all counts. David Wondrich writing for Esquire magazine 601 Post St, San Francisco, CA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map No matter how many tourists drop in for a pint or one of the bar's rudimentary mixed drinks, it still feels as though it's full of locals. The gallery upstairs is a particularly fine place to spend the day thrashing out what it all means. 255 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map The bar, jammed to the edge of the dark and dowdy dining room, is neither big nor elaborate. But it can turn out a martini that Bogart would've judged worthy of the name. That counts for a lot in this world. Esquire Magazine 6667 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map The tenders of this small bar will do everything they can to make exactly what you ask for, even if it happens to be a regrettable choice.In the Beverly Hills Hotel. Esquire Magazine 9641 Sunset blvd, Beverly Hills, CA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map La Gitana has bloodstains on the floor, bullet holes in the walls, and the occasional free den- tal extraction on the pool table from a pliers-wielding biker. Seriously. Esquire Magazine 17201 West 5th St, Arivaca, AZ Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Scott Dickensheets, writing for Esquire, 'Once, at the Double Down, I saw a beautiful woman drop her jeans and shoot pool in red panties, but that's not what makes this a great bar -- or at least it's not the only thing. What makes the Double Down great is this: While it's in Vegas, it's not of Vegas -- except in a few ways that matter. The paradox of Las Vegas is that all your cavorting takes place in the most meticulously calculated, carefully monitored environment known to man. Not at the Double Down. This joint is primordial, and yet a kind of Vegas theatricality rules, like Liberace inside out, with pagan grunge in place of glitter. Decadent murals of women and guitars crawl up the walls and across the ceiling. Weird movie clips and anime loop on the TV. The house drink is called Ass Juice, and, brother, you don't wanna know. 'Vegas needs more places like this,' said a clean-cut guy standing next to me on a recent, typical night at the Double Down: frat guys, vampire hipsters, Bukowski-grade barflies, and, as always, someone who made the wrong choice regarding leather pants. In a group that varied, no one's out of place. Vegas's main industry now is the outsized 'experience,' but if you have one at the DD, at least you won't have to credit a casino imagineer. It's all you and the Ass Juice, man. That's what makes this a great bar.' 4640 Paradise Rd, Las Vegas, NV Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Out front, open to the Bellagio lobby, tables surround a piano; deeper within, velvet couches await. Don't worry about fitting in. Everyone's come for the same reasons you have: glorious fish eggs and smoked salmon, terrific specialty cocktails, and a break from the noisy chic of the new Vegas. In the Bellagio. Esquire Magazine 3600 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas, NV Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Back when westerns were box-office gold, the El Rancho Hotel was where the stars ate, drank, and slept when they weren't sitting on horses. The hotel's lounge is both rough-hewn and rough around the edges. It doesn't serve a lot of fancy cocktails, but it has great booze. Esquire Magazine 1000 East Highway 66, Gallup, NM Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Without question the best place in the country to find a beautiful woman who can gut her own trout. Just be sure she's twenty-one. Esquire Magazine 428 N Higgins Ave, Missoula, MT Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Except for a minor face-lift in the eighties, the art-deco interior at this 1933 Denver lounge has been kept gorgeously intact. Low crimson lighting, classic cocktails, exceptional martinis. In the Oxford Hotel. Esquire Magazine 1600 17th St, Denver, CO Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map A puzzling mix of old-school acid cowboys, students, and retirees drinking inside a collection of old railcars. Donn Adelman, who founded the place in 1972, is the man taking requests from behind the piano. Esquire Magazine 1600 W 5th St, Austin, TX Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map I discovered Silver Street on a recent road-to-nowhere bar crawl with my Peace Corps buddy Adam. Heading north out of the Chippewa reservation in Wisconsin's Northwoods, the darkness and endless tracts of bars will whittle your expectations down to nothing. Until you crest a hill and see the old mining town of Hurley and its Silver Street: a quarter-mile-long stretch of road with twenty-five bars and half a dozen strip clubs. We crossed our Rubicon when we entered Nora's Bar & Red Carpet Lounge. A couple bottles didn't set us back five dollars, including tip. Then it was Mac's Bar, The Krash Inn, Freddie's Old Time Saloon, Iron Nugget, and a dozen others. At Iron Horse, we happened upon a 'meat raffle,' with meat-raffle girls in tight jeans spinning a wheel for beef prizes: 'pasties and sauce,' raw hamburger, and prime rib (for which everyone stood up). Adam ended up winning ten pounds of skirt steak; we traded it to the locals for beer. The last bit of Silver Street is a section of tiny strip clubs: Cheeks, Club Carnival, the Silver Dollar Saloon, and others. For as remote as Hurley is, the girls aren't bad. Even in mukluks. Tony D'Souza writing for Esquire magazine 300 Silver St, Hurley, WI Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map A martini lounge in a 1947 movie house, the Inwood smells like gin, smoke, and warmed-up celluloid. And fresh popcorn. And although the key-shaped bar is the most inviting in the city, the best place to drink is at one of the tables next to the silent curtain of water falling down the wall. Esquire Magazine 5458 West Lovers Lane, Dallas, TX Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map If they made a sequel to Fargo, the first scene would be set here. The sparkling vinyl booths and sing-along piano bar made this place the epitome of swank for the generations of Polish-Americans who populated northeast Minneapolis. Thankfully, the old-timers refuse to yield. Esquire Magazine 112 E hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Rowdy but friendly blue-collar barn of a joint with Irish music. Oh, and, strangely for an Irish pub, bocce-ball courts in the basement.Esquire Magazine 1013 Front Ave, St Paul, MN Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map If Milwaukee can't do a beer bar right, then America's in worse trouble than we thought. Judging by the venerable Holler House, things'll be okay. Esquire Magazine 2042 W Lincoln Ave, Milwaukee, WI Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map To not mention Colin Cordwell, the co-owner and frequent bartender, would be to ignore this bar's best feature. He'll talk till he's forgotten you've ordered a beer. He'll talk till you've forgotten you've ordered a beer. And if the Lion were really about drinking, one of you might care. Esquire Magazine 2446 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map You'll never have to remind the bartenders what you are drinking. Ask mixologist Chad Johnson to make you the manhattan he perfected in Louisville. Esquire Magazine 1622 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Being in a triangular building, it should properly have been named the Matchbook. The original owner (he was off-the-boat Polish) had it right, though, in terms of scale, if not shape; there is as much room behind the bar as there is for the patrons on stools: about four feet. The Box's dedication to fresh, top-shelf cocktails is legend, from the house-infused vodkas to the twelve brands of gin to the row of ten shiny shakers beckoning from the bar top, the dregs of which are always left with the customer to top things off. Ted Allen writing for Esquire Magazine 770 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map If you think it's weird that the Meatpacking District in New York became trendy for three minutes, consider the Hideout, originally a third-shift bar for the garbagemen and snowplow drivers who park their trucks directly across Wabansia Avenue. Surrounded by warehouses, it's now home to a percolating music scene with an alt-country bent -- a sort of clubhouse for the Bloodshot Records label. Esquire Magazine 1354 W Wabansia Ave, Chicago, IL Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Excepting that time each year when Kate Campion throws her annual adult spelling bee (named not for randy content but for the added challenge to literacy that alcohol represents), the Chipp Inn is not the sort of place that gets (or seeks) attention. Tucked in at the nondescript West Town corner of Greenview and Fry, it has no food, save chips and Slim Jims, although you can peruse the delivery menus if you like. It's got a barkeep, Joe, who has a passing resemblance to a young Mayor Daley, but he's probably tired of hearing that. If you buy a pack of cigs from Joe, he will unwrap it, flip the top open, and present them to you. This is a nice thing for Joe to do. Esquire Magazine 832 N Greenview Ave, Chicago, IL Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Opened in 1856, Tujague's has all the amenities you'd expect from a bar that old: none. So if you're looking for a comfortable seat or even a barstool, go somewhere else. Stay if you want an unassuming atmosphere and bread pudding that'll make you weep. Esquire Magazine 823 Decatur A, New Orleans, LA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map All Fritzel's -- a German jazz bar, if that's not a contradiction -- has going for it is a huge portrait of Field Marshal Rommel, a blisteringly hot swing combo that takes requests, massive mugs of cold lager, and cheap shots of Jagermeister, which was supposedly introduced to America here.Esquire Magazine 733 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map A few years ago, a newspaper assigned me to find the ten best martinis in Savannah. I had only one evening to do it, and it ended, like all my nights out, at Pinkie Master's Lounge. My vision was wobbly, but I knew Pinkie's by heart: its flushed young students and florid old regulars, its rebel flag and signed R.E.M. poster, its sticky bar top where virtually every politician in Georgia has ordered a drink. Pinkie Masterpolis died in 1977, and I don't think they've dusted his drapes or raised his prices since. My martini cost $3.50, came in a plastic cup, and was perfect.Luke Dittrich for Esquire Magazine 318 Drayton Ave, Savannah, GA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map When? Morning, when the game's on. Premier League soccer in the day, punk bands at night, British round the clock. Esquire Magazine 5501 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map The best bar/western-wear store/music venue in Nashville and a historic spot that launched the best band you've never heard of: neo-honky-tonkers Esquire Magazine 416 Broadway, Nashville, TN Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map At the outer edge of the vast sea of decrepit two-story row houses that is northeast Philadelphia, there's a cemetery. Past the cemetery, there's a Burger King and a car dealership. Past them, there's the Grey Lodge. If Moe Szyslak's umpteenth suicide attempt actually succeeded and if, through some unlikely but amusing chain of events, Comic Book Guy took over his bar, this is what you'd end up with. It's a long way to go for a beer. It's worth it. Esquire Magazine 6235 Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map After fifteen minutes at this uncanny re-creation of a pre-Prohibition corner bar, you'll be running simultaneous conversations with one stranger about Sumerian zymurgy and with another about the problems dating a girl who lives with her identical twin raises. And drinking a perfect rye old-fashioned.Esquire Magazine 701 South 4th St, Philadelphia, PA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map A twenty-three-ounce beer for only $2.25. Pool tables, three jukeboxes, and Ping-Pong. Every 'Burgh bar crawl goes through Dee's. Esquire Magazine 1314 E Carson St, Pittsburgh, PA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Once you master the dress code and navigate the gantlet of staff members by the door whose sole purpose seems to be to keep the riffraff out by making them -- you -- feel like an eighth grader at a high school mixer, how quietly eccentric it turns out to be. Just like a real bar, only much, much richer. Esquire Magazine 21 W 52nd St, New York, NY Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map It's a former speakeasy where you still feel as though you're getting away with something. Even in midtown. Esquire Magazine 57 E 54th St, New York, NY Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Sure, it's a gay bar, but this dingy, loose-hinged old survivor is still more masculine than 90 percent of the straight bars in America. If Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams were drinking buddies, Julius' would've been their bar. Esquire Magazine 159 W 10th St, New York, NY Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Attached to this little bar -- manned by a bartender so closemouthed that some think he's kidding -- is a high stone wall surrounding half an acre of gravel punctuated by rows of century-old trees and bench after bench of people of every stripe (after all, this is Queens, perhaps the most diverse place in the world), all peacefully drinking beer and munching sausages. Paradise. Esquire Magazine 29-19 24th Ave, New York, NY Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map In 1979, when I moved into the uppermost apartment of a three-decker on a hill near Franklin Park, I quickly fastened on Doyle's, a dark joint on Washington Street under the elevated tracks down the hill. Jamaica Plain was just beginning to gentrify, and Doyle's was a throwback. There were vintage signs on the walls, including a triptych of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito cupping their ears above the legend ENEMY EARS ARE LISTENING. On Friday nights, it hosted local folksingers, including Stanley Matis, who would sing a song about Buster Christ, a mechanic who wanted nothing to do with the trouble his brother was causing. Now it's a theme park for the city's political class. The apotheosis came in 2004 when, with the Democrats in town, the place found itself afflicted with pols, pundits, and cable-TV layabouts. (It's hard for a bar to stay cool when Chris Matthews is on the next stool, I can tell you that.) What saves it, of course, are the Burkes, who bought the place from the Doyles in 1971. They've managed to clean it up without selling it out and have seen the place become nationally famous while maintaining the basics of a great saloon. I feel proud that I met it when I did. Charles Pierce writing for Esquire Magazine. 3484 Washington St, Jamaica Plain, MA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Oh, Lord, the Beach Ball. It's easy for a bar to be great in New York or New Orleans, where there are plenty of buildings old enough to have a good patina on them. In Orange County, not so easy. The Beach Ball makes the list because it opens at 6:00 a.m., and there's a line. And it's on the beach, but there's no pa- tio. And because this outpost of 'normalcy' is in Orange County, where plastic surgery is performed on pets. And because the late Spencer Rush, my father-in-law, used to drink here. An Orange County native, and an ornery one, he looked like Bruce Dern and taught history to the pretty little heads at Marina High. If Spence liked it and it liked Spence, it's a great bar. Esquire Magazine 2116 W Oceanfront, Newport Beach, CA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map The best way to get there is from below, like a supplicant. You drive up from Albuquerque through the Indian reservation and red rocks to the deep cottonwoods, then follow the winding stream up the mountain. If you time it right and the light hits the sheer canyon walls, they turn into majestic golden ships sailing straight for the center of the sky, and you realize something you must have always known: This is why people think the desert is a sacred place. hen you get to Jemez Springs, a town so small, it doesn't even have a stoplight -- but it does have one Buddhist monastery, one nunnery run by the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, one hot-springs restorative mineral-water bathhouse, and one former dry-out center for wayward priests. Across the street from the old dry-out center in every sense -- physically, spiritually, and metaphorically -- is Los Ojos. The building is faded adobe, and inside there's a long wooden bar and barstools that are logs carved with a chain saw. It doesn't take long, sitting there. You have one shot of tequila and talk to the scientist from Los Alamos, another and say hello to the outlaw biker, a third and listen to the priest brag about all the times he drove home from church smoking a joint and cranking Led Zeppelin. As you continue to fortify yourself, you develop a theory about monasteries and bars, the necessary balance between the right side of the road and the left. Then you remember the punch line to the classic joke about what the Buddhist told the hot-dog vendor -- 'Make me one with everything' -- and that reminds you of something else you must have always known: God is in the tequila, too. John H Richardson writing for Esquire Magazine 17596 Highway 4, Jemez Springs, NM Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map You can always spot the out-of-towners along the bar at El Chapultepec. Their faces ask, 'Are we really in Denver?' Though it sits on the edge of the city's dwindling skid row, El Chapultepec smells like New York, feels like New Orleans, and sounds like southside Chicago. Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Miles Davis -- all the greats have played El Chapultepec, aka the Pec, drawn by the bar's cranky but charismatic owner, septuagenarian Jerry Krantz. A 'full-blooded Russian,' Krantz is a dead ringer for Norman Mailer and says he was a dear friend of Ella Fitzgerald's, who used to sit in her limo outside the back door so she could hear the music and not deal with the people. Sinatra came by, too. He'd ask Krantz to cook him up some Italian sazeech. Krantz will tell you the stories, but not if you're an asshole. Krantz don't like assholes. These days, more and more customers are assholes, he says glumly, and one night he had to wrap a bar towel around a cue ball and knock the teeth down the throat of one truly spectacular asshole. Krantz invites you, therefore, to sit down at one of the half dozen red booths, drink your $1.25 draw beer, and listen politely to the music. By day, the Pec's a quiet bar, with regulars like Lefty, Pretty Boy, Oxygen Joe, and the guy who hit the lottery for eight mil a few years back but tries to keep a low profile. Then at 9:00, the Pec changes: live, old-school, straight-ahead jazz -- free. The best players beg to perform here and often jam long after closing time, because the place has that kind of vibe and because Krantz has that kind of reverence for the artist. Unless the artist misbehaves. Bono? Two girls in his party were underage, so the Pec carded his Irish ass. Kerouac used to come in, too. Again, Krantz was deeply unimpressed. 'I thought he was just a fucking wino dope addict,' he says. 'He'd sleep in a car next door and come in and wash up in the bathroom.' Then Kerouac went back East, Krantz says, and wrote some kinda road book. You read it, Jerry? 'Naaah. I know it.' J.R. Moehringer for Esquire magazine 1962 Market St, Denver, CO Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map Sitting at Nicky Blaine's is like inhabiting a Damon Runyon sentence: dated, but at the same time eternal and full of attitude. The place is a joint, an experience that asserts something inarguable about ducking off a city street for a quick smoke and two fingers of vodka. People will always need the comfort of a basement bar where the bartenders are attentive, the barstools succoring, and the lights, well, the lights transform everything. The women look sumptuous, fleshy, and flush; the men seem to stand taller, faces stripped of weariness and pretension. At Nicky Blaine's, everyone is sexy and full-blooded. I don't know if it's the wall sconces or the table lamps or the bar uplights or the candles here and there, but I am always struck by the fact that people there look the way they do in great paintings -- elegant, a little sad sometimes, centered in the middle of the small gestures that make us human. Yes, there are cigars to be had, plates of cheese to be lingered over, couches and armchairs and the warm wrap of red velvet and a regular jazz quartet. Sure, you can order what you want, and it will be better than you have a right to expect. But you'll sit to have a look, to absorb the visual comfort of a bar so thoughtfully lit. Tom Chiarella for Esquire Magazine 20 N Meridian St, Indianapolis, IN Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map It's hard to find a corner bar in Baltimore that hasn't been affected by real estate porn, but the Shamrock is still untouched by tapas menus and deejays. The women patrons seem tougher than the men: These gals are funny, big-boned, and uncursed by fashion, and they have a bevy of blue-collar male suitors pursuing them. 'Ma,' a toothless motorcycle enthusiast who is quite entertaining to talk to if she doesn't punch you, has a certain charm you usually don't find in the showbiz circles in which I'm forced to travel. The men are mostly straight but certainly open-minded. 'I used to be a male stripper,' one fifty-year-old roofer confessed to me one night between his turns at the pool table. 'Why aren't you still?' I kidded him. 'Who wants to look at these old buns?' he laughed before going back to his game. Another night when I chatted up a reasonably handsome roofer with Band-Aids on his face, a feminist biker who's become a friend whispered to me, 'Don't talk to that guy. He's a wife beater.' 'Oh, well,' I responded. 'I'm not marrying him.' It's that kind of place. You might have a bad night at the Shamrock, but you'll still have fun. I love it, but I wouldn't go there if I were you. John Waters writing for Esquire Magazine 6044 Hartford Rd, Baltimore, MD Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map The Napoleon House might be the best bar in America. First of all, it's in a 209-year-old house in the French Quarter of New Orleans, still America's best bar town. It's not a rowdy place. (Sure, they'll serve you a hurricane in a go cup, but you shouldn't order one.) The only music played is classical. But neither is it stodgy or stiff; the crowd is a lively mix of locals -- more than usual for a French Quarter bar -- and well-behaved out-of-towners. It's not a fancy place or an expensive place, but it's not a dive, either. It's got food: The muffuletta is considered the city's, and hence the world's, second best. And it's famous for its Pimm's Cup, which is fine. More important than all that is that it has an on-and-off relationship with Paul, the surly son of a bitch who makes the best Sazerac in town. He mixes 'em as if he's doing you a huge fucking favor, and he is. Esquire Magazine 500 Chartres St, New Orleans, LA Nightlife One of Esquire Mag's Best bars in America - View this location on map From 1800 until approximately the Nixon era, it was universally acknowledged that the best bars in the world were found in New York hotels -- the old Waldorf-Astoria, the Metropolitan, the New York. The honor roll is a long one. For the guys who worked at these places, mixing drinks was a calling. Can you imagine a modern-day New York hotel bartender smiling when you order a manhattan, asking you which kind of bitters and which kind of rye you'd like in it, producing a prechilled mixing glass, hand-cracking the ice, stirring everything together with a suave, easy rotation of the wrist, retrieving a shapely cocktail coupe (also prechilled), popping a brandied cherry into the bottom of it, straining in the drink, twisting a swatch of lemon peel over the top, wiping the rim of the glass with it, sliding you your drink, and pouring you a glass of ice water on the side? The only thing that keeps Pegu Club, the bar 'Libation Goddess' Audrey Saunders opened last year on a nondescript stretch of Houston Street, from rivaling the one at the Hoffman House -- enshrined in city lore as the city's best cocktail bar ever -- is that there's no hotel upstairs where you can sleep it off. By the way, that manhattan? That's exactly how they make it at Pegu. Esquire Magazine. 77 West Houston St, New York, NY Nightlife |