Editorial
New Orleans is the cradle of American cocktailing. The Sazerac was invented here. The Ramos Gin Fizz was invented here. The Vieux Carré was invented here. The 10 below honour that history while including the modern rooms (Cure, Cane & Table, Compère Lapin) that have brought NOLA cocktailing back to its 1880s peak.
The Sazerac Bar lives inside the Roosevelt Hotel, an art deco room with Paul Ninas murals and a long mahogany bar that once served Huey Long. This is the home of the Sazerac, the city's own rye, Peychaud's and absinthe ritual, and the bartenders make it the way New Orleans intended. Order one, then a Ramos Gin Fizz, and go before dinner while the room is still calm.
Cure opened on Freret Street in 2009 and helped relight the modern New Orleans cocktail scene, a James Beard winner that placed 21st on North America's 50 Best Bars in 2026. The room is part apothecary, part neighborhood living room, with a list that rewards trust in the bartender. Come early on a weeknight, sit at the marble bar, and ask what they are excited about.
Cane & Table works a sun-faded courtyard on Decatur Street and treats rum and proto-tiki with real seriousness, a sibling project from the Cure team. The daiquiris are tart and honest, the food Caribbean and generous. It suits a slow afternoon or an easy date. Come for the back patio when the light goes gold and order a Hotel Nacional Special.
Compère Lapin is chef Nina Compton's room at the Old No. 77 Hotel in the Warehouse District, where Caribbean cooking meets a cocktail list with real intent. It has stayed popular well past its tenth year, a James Beard kitchen with a bar to match. Come for dinner, or take a seat at the bar with the curried goat and a rum cocktail and let the night build.
The French 75 Bar sits beside Arnaud's dining room in the French Quarter, old-school and formal without the stiffness, the bar Chris Hannah led to a James Beard award for best in America. The namesake French 75 arrives in a flute with the ceremony it deserves. It suits a dressed-up night. Come after dark, order the French 75, then a Sazerac, and let the jacketed staff guide you.
Napoleon House has held the corner of Chartres and St. Louis for 200 years, all peeling plaster, opera on the speakers and doors thrown open to the Quarter. The Pimm's Cup is the order, long and cooling, the drink the room is built around. It suits a hot afternoon with a muffuletta. Come when the heat peaks, take a courtyard table, and let the city slow down around you.
Barrel Proof keeps more than 500 whiskeys behind a low clapboard building on Magazine Street, dark and unpretentious, the kind of bar where the staff want to talk shop. The cocktails are sharp, the brown-spirit list is deep, and a kitchen pop-up keeps you fed. It is a bar for the curious and the patient. Come late, ask for a pour you have never tried, and settle in.
Twelve Mile Limit pours world-class cocktails in a Mid-City corner that has been a bar since the 1920s, a beloved dive where the drinks punch above the room. The bartenders take the classics seriously and the prices stay neighborly. This is community before ceremony. Come on a weeknight, bring friends, and let the jukebox and a plate off the grill carry the evening.
Latitude 29 is Jeff Berry's tiki room inside the Bienville House Hotel, the bar where the foremost rum historian put decades of research behind the stick. The Zombies and Mai Tais are mixed with archival precision, the food leans PolynAsian and fun. It is a joyful, escapist night. Come early, order a Zombie, and respect the two-per-guest rule, which exists for a reason.
Visit The Sazerac Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel for the original Sazerac. Drink a Pimm's Cup at the Napoleon House. Order a Vieux Carré at Hotel Monteleone's Carousel Bar. Then graduate to Cure, Cane & Table, and Compère Lapin for what New Orleans cocktailing looks like in the present. Most peak between 11 PM and 1 AM.
Senior US Editor — drinks his way through New York and writes about which bars actually deserve their reputations.