Round Robin Bar

There are hotel bars that are merely expensive, and then there is the Round Robin. Tucked inside the Willard InterContinental — two blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue — this circular paneled room has been the nerve center of American political drinking since 1847. Henry Clay reportedly introduced the Mint Julep to Washington here. Abraham Lincoln drank bourbon at this bar before his inaugurations. The word "lobbyist" itself was coined for the people who worked the Willard's main lobby trying to bend the ear of President Ulysses S. Grant.

The bar has not tried to modernize itself into irrelevance. The circular mahogany bar, the period portraits, the leather-backed stools — all of it has been preserved with the seriousness of a national monument. The bartenders wear white jackets. The cocktail list respects both history and craft, led by a mint julep executed the way Clay would have approved: crushed ice, proper bourbon, mint touched rather than crushed.

Go on a Thursday evening when DC's legal and political world descends after work. The conversations around you will be conducted in low voices and expensive suits. The bill will sting, appropriately, because this is not a bar you stumble into — it is a bar you arrive at. Pair a visit here with dinner nearby or with a late-night tour of DC's hidden gem bars for a complete evening. Anyone serious about understanding Washington DC's drinking culture owes themselves at least one night here.

For a different side of the city, Off the Record at the Hay-Adams Hotel is the Round Robin's downtown rival and equally essential. Both belong on any serious DC bar itinerary, and both reward dressing for the occasion.