It's not just great drinks that make a great bar — it's also great service, great ambience, and fair prices that complete the experience.
We looked at six notable bar rankings compiled by critics and experts and aggregated the rankings to come up with our own list of the Best Bars in America.
The rankings we used were James Beard Foundation's 2014 Restaurant and Chef Award Semifinalists for Outstanding Bar Program; Esquire's Best Bars in America; Food & Wine's Best Bars in America; Zagat's Hottest Bars in 15 US Cities; The World's 50 Best Bars from Drinks International; and Liquor.com's Best Bars in America.
We gave each bar a numerical rating based on how many lists the bar appeared on and how high it appeared on lists that were ranked. We used the number of five-star Yelp ratings as a tiebreaker, where a bar with more five-star Yelp ratings outranked another bar when a tie occurred.
You can read more about our methodology here.
18. Attaboy
When the cultish speakeasy Milk & Honey moved in 2012, it left behind two expert bartenders, Sam Ross and Michael McIlroy, who opened Attaboy in early 2013.
This menuless, Lower East Side cocktail bar maintains the same expertise in all things liquor and even more secrecy than its predecessor: It has no website and no telephone number, and it serves beer, wine, and bartender's choice drinks on a first-come, first-serve basis.
17. Death & Co.
Death & Co. is a well-hidden gem on the border of the East Village and Alphabet City serving gourmet cocktails — both entirely from-scratch innovations, and ones that take liberties with the classics.
Not many people used to know about Death & Co., but the secret's out, and now cocktail enthusiasts are prepared for the long wait, especially on weekends, for Dave Kaplan and Ravi DeRossi's award-winning menu.
16. The Broken Shaker
Elad Zvi and Gabriel Orta, the owners of the beverage program company Bar Lab, collaborated with the Freehand Miami hotel to open James Beard Award-nominated bar The Broken Shaker.
The bar puts a little bit of Miami in everything it does, from the tropics-inspired drinks on the menu to the service, which extends out into the Freehand's oasis-like outdoor patio.
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