Antoine Amédée Peychaud immigrated from Santo Domingo to New Orleans in the early 1800s. By 1832 he had opened his own apothecary, serving a family recipe for bitters. Today, they're an essential ingredient in hundreds of classic and modern cocktails. But only in NOLA can they be sipped in Peychaud’s former house, reimagined as a cocktail bar by the people behind Cane & Table. A Vieux Carré is best sipped in the courtyard alongside a three-tiered fountain and a spirit-discerning crowd.

Owners and New Orleans cocktail legends Nick Detrich and Chris Hannah opened Jewel in 2019, and the Creole cottage setting dates to 1830 and the name is an homage to a mid-19th century bar of the same name, operated by Proprietor Joseph Santini. Santini invented the Brandy Crusta cocktail—a floral, sugar-rimmed cognac drink with lemon, maraschino, and curaçao—and Hannah now serves it with Remy 1739 Cognac, Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao, and a few dashes of Angostura bitters.

A requisite for wine enthusiasts, with a list of small producers from across Europe and an impressive collection of organic and biodynamic labels, N7 feels like a secret. Push through a rough looking fence of a former tire shop in the Bywater to a fairytale setting with moonlight, lanterns and a dining room in a spacious gravel courtyard. At both the tiny metal tables and large, communal wooden ones, the staff also serves chef Yuki Yamaguchi’s French cooking with Japanese twists.

This long-standing music club on Frenchman Street is one of the best places to see live music in New Orleans. Patrons can grab a small-batch bourbon or a shaken Dark & Stormy, settle in on a barstool beneath the low wood ceiling and turn their eyes to the tiny stage, bathed in red and purple lights. Sought-after acts like Walter Wolfman Washington, Treme Brass Band, and the Soul Rebels are regulars almost every week, and the well-curated craft beer list deserves an honorable mention, too.

Tiki cocktail culture was born on the West Coast, but the godfather of the modern movement is right here in New Orleans, where he owns one of the premiere Tiki bars in the world. Jeff “Beachbum” Berry is a historian, author, rum expert and exceptional conversationalist, easy to learn while sipping his Zombie, Mai Tai, or Jungle Bird. Yes, it’s in the French Quarter and has bamboo, Tiki mugs, and thatched elements, but it’s also one of the pillars of well-made drinks in New Orleans.

The Sazerac—invented in 1850 in a NOLA saloon—has long been the official drink of New Orleans (it was signed into law in 2008). Since then, The Sazarac Bar has existed in three locations—currently at the Roosevelt Hotel. The recipe, which started with cognac, is now made with Sazerac Rye whiskey (plus a sugar cube, Peychaud’s Bitters and an absinthe or Herbsaint rinse). The hotel, with its Art Deco design and 1930s murals by Paul Ninas, stirs more than 30,000 perfect Sazeracs every year.

Mayor Nicholas Girod finished building 500 Chartres Street in 1814. In 1821, he purportedly offered it to Napoleon as a landing pad post exile (Napoleon died before that adventure). The Impastato family purchased the building in 1920, and the mottled walls still host portraits of Impastato ancestors and a few paintings exchanged when tabs were too high to pay. The bar is famous for inventing the Pimm’s Cup, an herbaceous, low-alcohol lemonade.

Home to single-estate tequilas, small-batch mezcals, and exceptional small rum producers, the convivial Palm & Pine fuses Louisiana flavors with Central and South American traditions. The cocktails are ultra-creative: The Solaris is made with a Bolivian spirit called Singhani 63 and with turmeric, Yellow Chartreuse, curry leaf and Kummel-Angostura bitters. Their Oaxacan Mole dish is a shining example of their menu: a cocoa-chili crusted duck breast with plantains and chimichurri.

Worn floors, low ceilings, dark walls, candles on rickety tables—an old carriage house with a courtyard and a few ghost stories—Sylvain is a quintessential French Quarter bar and restaurant. For those who plan to give in and drink a frozen cocktail when in town, this is an actually respectable place to try a bracing frozen Rum Punch.

Basically the living room of New Orleans, Arnaud’s is where an evening starts or ends. It’s a gracious, intimate space for celebrating a wedding or simply a Wednesday afternoon, admiring the outfits of others and the bar counter from the 1800s. Here, liquor flowed freely during Prohibition, women weren’t allowed in until the late ‘70s and the restaurant tables seat more than 1,000 in 17 antique-furnished rooms. It’s also a grande dame of Creole dining, with an in-house jazz bistro.

Post Katrina, Bacchanal’s backyard, where the outdoor grills were lit every Sunday and bands plugged in beneath the trees, defined the local scene. Today this backyard soiree is more mainstream, with a full kitchen and more visitors than locals. But there’s still magic in selecting a bucket of ice and a bottle of Sancerre or Tempranillo from the old racks up front, requesting a cheese plate, and finding a wrought-iron table and some hot Brass action in the warm night air.