Black Whiskey sits upstairs at 1410 14th Street NW, a full service tavern in the heart of the Logan Circle corridor. It leans on American whiskey, ten beers on tap, and a short menu of bar pies, with a pool table and televisions for the room.
Who would love it: people who want a 14th Street perch without a craft cocktail ritual or a velvet rope. Who would hate it: anyone after a quiet date, since the room runs loud and late on weekends.
The space is a neighborhood bar rather than a temple to bourbon. The whiskey list reads broad and domestic, the kind of back bar built for an honest Manhattan or a pour you can name without a glossary. The bar's own description leans into the tavern framing, and the ten taps keep beer drinkers in the conversation rather than relegating them to an afterthought.
What to order: start with an American whiskey neat or in a simple build, then chase it with a slice of the bar pie that gives the kitchen its reputation among 14th Street regulars. Prices land in tavern territory, not the 18 dollar cocktail range of the cocktail rooms a few blocks south. It is a place to settle in for a few rounds without watching the tab climb.
The crowd skews after work early in the week and tips toward a younger weekend crew as the night runs long. Hours stretch to nearly 2am on weeknights and close to 3am on Friday and Saturday, per the bar's posted schedule, which makes it a dependable late stop when the dining rooms nearby have called last orders.
Best time to go: a weekday evening, when you can claim the pool table and actually hear the person across from you. By midnight on a weekend the upstairs room fills and the volume climbs. For a relaxed whiskey and a slice, the early window is the move.
It is a steady, unpretentious anchor on the strip. See where it sits among the city's best whiskey bars in Washington DC, and compare it with the Washington DC craft beer bars we track nearby.
Reviewed by Tom Callahan, barsforKings. Sources: Black Whiskey official site and hours page (2026); Yelp listing (n=177, accessed 2026-06); DMV Happy Hours.
