The Sazerac Bar

CBD, Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans · Cocktail Bar · $$

The Sazerac is the official cocktail of New Orleans: rye, Peychaud's bitters mixed by a French Quarter apothecary in the 1830s, and an absinthe rinse swirled out before the drink goes in. This bar held a men-only rule until September 1949, when women walked in together and ended it, an afternoon the city still calls the Storming of the Sazerac. The African walnut walls and Paul Ninas murals date to 1938, and Huey Long ran a good deal of Louisiana from the hotel upstairs.