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  • Dead Rabbit -- World's Best Bar

    • 10/11/2016
    • ADB
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    This year’s tally of the Entire World’s Best Bars bring the top of the heap to Manhattan. 

     

    To be clear, regarded as a tally of places that put out first-rate cocktails, it is manifestly sound. Manhattan’s Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog taking top honors is just: To shuffle across the sawdust of the Rabbit’s unpretentious downstairs taproom—or to sip cocktails in its deliciously pretentious upstairs parlor—is to refresh one’s understanding of hospitality.

     

    But the sense of authority that makes this list useful as a list of good places to drink limits its worthiness as a list to have a friendly argument about—which is half the fun of lists. (It goes without saying that having friendly arguments is half the fun of bars, too.)

     

    The “academy”—a group of 476 people including esteemed mixologists, eminent historians, and hopeless barflies—cast votes for 652 bars, and the cream rose to the top, and only a rank contrarian could quibble with the gist of things. Yes, 4 of the top ten are in London mixing good drinks right now. Sure, reasonable people will agree that Smuggler’s Cove is the finest bar in San Francisco and a worthy torchbearer of the tiki-torch standard. No, American Bars has not visited Mexico City’s Licorería Limantour—rated the best bar in Latin America—but AB sincerely thanks the academy for alerting us to the magic it performs with mezcal.

     

    This year’s list doesn’t vary dramatically from last year’s, give or take a bit of shuffling and the appearance of a few new faces. Bars making their debuts include London’s Gibson, Shanghai’s Speak Low, and New York’s Dante, which, until now, has tended to fly a bit under the radar, despite the involvement of well-respected barman Naren Young. The other Gotham spots on list tend to be heavily laureled hooch houses such as Employees Only and PDT, which is to say bars with their own grand legends and published cocktail guides and cults of personality. And now Dante had joined their company? Interesting! Potentially arguable! I headed down to the modest upstart’s Greenwich Village location to ingest the 50 Best Bars news. This proved fortuitous, as Dante has a way with aperitifs.

     

    Expertly crafted cocktails, inspired by Lower Manhattan's rough and tumble turn-of-the-century history, have proven to be the winning formula for the world's best bar.

     

    American Bars has written several times about Water Street's Dead Rabbit — named after a gang of Irish immigrants from Downtown's Five Points era (yep, like the movie "Gangs of New York”). And yes, this is one of the oldest bars in New York City, begun in the 1850’s.  

     

    So, an old, historic hole in the wall beat all the trendy, new places and took home first place in the World's 50 Best Bar 2016 rankings, an honor chosen by "400 experts" at trade publication Drinks International.

     

    The two-level bar, owned by Irish immigrants, pays homage to late 1800s Irish pub culture in New York City — with more than 70 cocktails from the bygone era.

     

    Its changing menu is more like a graphic novel of 19th-century Lower Manhattan that features old-timey libations — for example, the $16 "Guilty as Sin" is a cocktail made from Irish Whiskey, Cognac, Mezcal, French Bitters, coffee, banana and aromatic bitters

     

    According to competition organizers, the bar's attention to historical detail was a big factor in its win: "But the Dead Rabbit is more than the sum of its liquid parts, fusing as it does colourful historical references to the city’s 19th-century Water Street rough-neck pub set and Lower Broadway’s genteel cocktail imbibers in an atmosphere of Irish-American hospitality," they said in a statement about the winning bar.

     

    The Dead Rabbit won the top spot, but seven other New York City bars, including the Lower East Side's Attaboy, West Village's Employees Only and Williamsburg's Maison Premiere also made the top 50. NO LA bar was featured. This is a crime! 

     

    Here are the top 10. Five in London. Four in NYC. I think someone has the fix in! 

     

    1. The Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog, New York

    2. American Bar, London

    3. Dandelyan, London

    4. Connaught Bar, London

    5. Attaboy, New York

    6. The Gibson, London

    7. Employees Only, New York

    8. Nomad Bar, New York

    9. The Clumsies, Athens

    10. Happiness Forgets, London

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Dead Rabbit -- World's Best Bar

 

This year’s tally of the Entire World’s Best Bars bring the top of the heap to Manhattan. 

 

To be clear, regarded as a tally of places that put out first-rate cocktails, it is manifestly sound. Manhattan’s Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog taking top honors is just: To shuffle across the sawdust of the Rabbit’s unpretentious downstairs taproom—or to sip cocktails in its deliciously pretentious upstairs parlor—is to refresh one’s understanding of hospitality.

 

But the sense of authority that makes this list useful as a list of good places to drink limits its worthiness as a list to have a friendly argument about—which is half the fun of lists. (It goes without saying that having friendly arguments is half the fun of bars, too.)

 

The “academy”—a group of 476 people including esteemed mixologists, eminent historians, and hopeless barflies—cast votes for 652 bars, and the cream rose to the top, and only a rank contrarian could quibble with the gist of things. Yes, 4 of the top ten are in London mixing good drinks right now. Sure, reasonable people will agree that Smuggler’s Cove is the finest bar in San Francisco and a worthy torchbearer of the tiki-torch standard. No, American Bars has not visited Mexico City’s Licorería Limantour—rated the best bar in Latin America—but AB sincerely thanks the academy for alerting us to the magic it performs with mezcal.

 

This year’s list doesn’t vary dramatically from last year’s, give or take a bit of shuffling and the appearance of a few new faces. Bars making their debuts include London’s Gibson, Shanghai’s Speak Low, and New York’s Dante, which, until now, has tended to fly a bit under the radar, despite the involvement of well-respected barman Naren Young. The other Gotham spots on list tend to be heavily laureled hooch houses such as Employees Only and PDT, which is to say bars with their own grand legends and published cocktail guides and cults of personality. And now Dante had joined their company? Interesting! Potentially arguable! I headed down to the modest upstart’s Greenwich Village location to ingest the 50 Best Bars news. This proved fortuitous, as Dante has a way with aperitifs.

 

Expertly crafted cocktails, inspired by Lower Manhattan's rough and tumble turn-of-the-century history, have proven to be the winning formula for the world's best bar.

 

American Bars has written several times about Water Street's Dead Rabbit — named after a gang of Irish immigrants from Downtown's Five Points era (yep, like the movie "Gangs of New York”). And yes, this is one of the oldest bars in New York City, begun in the 1850’s.  

 

So, an old, historic hole in the wall beat all the trendy, new places and took home first place in the World's 50 Best Bar 2016 rankings, an honor chosen by "400 experts" at trade publication Drinks International.

 

The two-level bar, owned by Irish immigrants, pays homage to late 1800s Irish pub culture in New York City — with more than 70 cocktails from the bygone era.

 

Its changing menu is more like a graphic novel of 19th-century Lower Manhattan that features old-timey libations — for example, the $16 "Guilty as Sin" is a cocktail made from Irish Whiskey, Cognac, Mezcal, French Bitters, coffee, banana and aromatic bitters

 

According to competition organizers, the bar's attention to historical detail was a big factor in its win: "But the Dead Rabbit is more than the sum of its liquid parts, fusing as it does colourful historical references to the city’s 19th-century Water Street rough-neck pub set and Lower Broadway’s genteel cocktail imbibers in an atmosphere of Irish-American hospitality," they said in a statement about the winning bar.

 

The Dead Rabbit won the top spot, but seven other New York City bars, including the Lower East Side's Attaboy, West Village's Employees Only and Williamsburg's Maison Premiere also made the top 50. NO LA bar was featured. This is a crime! 

 

Here are the top 10. Five in London. Four in NYC. I think someone has the fix in! 

 

1. The Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog, New York

2. American Bar, London

3. Dandelyan, London

4. Connaught Bar, London

5. Attaboy, New York

6. The Gibson, London

7. Employees Only, New York

8. Nomad Bar, New York

9. The Clumsies, Athens

10. Happiness Forgets, London

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