From Bon Appétit · Kristin Braswell · · 3m
Nine New Orleans bars worth the walk
From a tiki den run by a cocktail historian to a Cuban daiquiri shop on Dumaine, here is where New Orleans actually drinks.
In brief
From a tiki den run by a cocktail historian to a Cuban daiquiri shop on Dumaine, here is where New Orleans actually drinks. The best drinking in New Orleans happens a few blocks off Bourbon Street, where bartenders chase lost recipes and local spirits instead of frozen novelty. Originally reported by Bon Appétit.
The city that invented the Sazerac
New Orleans gave the world the Sazerac, the Hurricane, and the Ramos Gin Fizz. They came out of saloons, Prohibition soft drink stands, and bars that are still pouring.
“New Orleans has never shied away from bacchanalia, and what better complements that festive spirit than a good drink?”
More than Bourbon Street
The city runs on second lines and red beans on Mondays, not just Hurricanes and beads. Old bars and new ones both trade on lore plus a real appetite for invention.
Latitude 29 hides in a hotel
This tiki bar sits on the ground floor of the Bienville House Hotel, run by Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, a cocktail historian with seven award-winning books to his name.
“the Indiana Jones of tiki drinks”
Ninety years of tiki
The menu covers the full history of tiki drinking, from vintage recipes Berry dug up to his own originals. Order the Pontchartrain Pearl Diver, an iced hot buttered rum.
Antique wood, not thatch
Skip the beach-shack kitsch. Neo-tiki artists Bosko Hrnjak and Danny Gallardo built polished antique wood interiors, and the signature gin drink arrives in a carved ice igloo.
NightBloom backs small distillers
The Bacchanal team opened this Bywater late-night spot in 2024, pouring women-owned, minority-owned, and single-family spirits like Exclave and River Basin ryes.
Eight cocktails, ten to sixteen dollars
Bartender Justin "Juice" LeClair keeps a rotating list priced on purpose: a rose water white Negroni, a hibiscus cosmo, a lavender gin drink called Underneath the Purple Rain.
Jewel of the South revives a name
Opened in 2019 in an 1830s Creole cottage, it borrows its name from Joseph Santini, one of the 19th century's most famous bartenders, and resurrects his Brandy Crusta.
Duck fat in your rum
Head bartender Chris Hannah swings hard: duck-fat-washed rums, lapsang-tea maple syrup, Caribbean spice bitters. The food runs to caviar, crispy tripe, and Wagyu tongue.
Sazerac Bar keeps a grudge
Inside the Roosevelt, this Art Deco landmark popularized the Sazerac and the Ramos Gin Fizz. Every year it reenacts Stormin' the Sazerac, the stunt that ended its men-only rule.
Twelve minutes of shaking
The Ramos Gin Fizz here gets shaken twelve minutes or more. That emulsifies the cream, egg white, and citrus into the frothy head the drink is famous for.
Baroness hides a speakeasy
Camille Whitworth and Sidney Webb build seasonal menus on Louisiana strawberries, smoked pecan bitters, and Herbsaint rinses. Behind the main room, Secreto pours in the dark.
Barrel Proof stocks 500 bottles
New Orleans is short on whiskey dens, so Robert LeBlanc built one: low ceilings, dark wood, and more than 500 bourbons and ryes including E.H. Taylor and Old Soul.
Bar Tonique, three blocks out
Far enough from Bourbon Street to hear yourself think. A U-shaped bar, a chalkboard menu, a punch section built on port and Batavia-Arrack, and N/A Temperance Drinks.
Manolito learned in Havana
Its three owners trained with cantineros in Havana and brought the techniques home. A shrine honors Manuel Carbajo Aguiar of El Floridita, Hemingway's daiquiri bar.
Charles and Julia go up
Opened in May across two floors of the Hotel Perle: a living-room lounge downstairs for spirit-forward drinks, a rooftop terrace upstairs for watermelon and tequila.
The essence
The best drinking in New Orleans happens a few blocks off Bourbon Street, where bartenders chase lost recipes and local spirits instead of frozen novelty.
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