In New York and San Francisco and other places where real estate is expensive, the venerable, homey, and very human old dives are closing and these are opening instead. Today, this kind of bar numbers in the thousands, and you can find them in just about every town in the country. There weren't many of these places, but there were just enough to satisfy the rare cocktail enthusiast. That ten dollars would not get you bar snacks, a well-stocked jukebox, TV, Big Buck Hunter, darts, a greasy egg sandwich, or a basket of fries. What I didn't know was that I'd be reporting from the front lines of a revolution in how and where Americans drink.īack then, if you knew where to go in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and a few other towns, you could find a place where the young man or woman behind the bar would carefully crack the ice for your manhattan or El Presidente, precisely measure the ingredients and give them an elegant stir, strain the cocktail into a beautiful glass, and then charge you ten dollars. As the magazine's Drinks Correspondent, I was to be the pointman on the project. In 2005, my editors at Esquire came up with the idea of putting together a list of America's best bars-not the best new cocktail bars or sports bars or brunch bars or whatever, but the best bars irrespective of type.
