Best of Atlanta 2015 Drinking & Nightlife

Little Trouble

New Cocktail Bar: Little Trouble

Inside the Westside's White Provision building, walk through a concrete tunnel towards the wall of neon to find this spacious pad, inspired by Blade Runner and created by the team behind Paper Plane and Victory Sandwich Bar.

First-Date Bar: Skylounge at the Glenn Hotel

Drinks are stiff, and the crowd at the bar is usually pretty sparse until after 10.
Emergency Drinking Beer

New Beer: Emergency Drinking Beer, Wild Heaven Craft Beers

Introduced last spring, Emergency Drinking Beer—and its eye-catching yellow can—proved to be precisely what we needed to survive, frankly, everything.
Best of Atlanta 2015

Mocktails: Kimball House

There’s no formal mocktail menu, but Miles Macquarrie and his team of challenge-loving bartenders need just a few key words to assemble something intoxicating in every way but one.
Cole Younger Just

Bartender of the Year: Cole Younger Just, Last Word

No other cocktail list this year felt as intentional yet whimsical as the one that Just built at this late-night Lebanese restaurant in the Old Fourth Ward.
Hop City

New Spot To Grab A Pint: Hop City Bar At Krog Street Market

Hop City’s Westside retail market has long been a destination for craft beer and wine. So we could hardly contain ourselves last December when the shop opened an Inman Park outpost with one major bonus: an adjacent draft-only bar.
Avalon

Place to Drink and Shop: Avalon

Almost unbelievably, Avalon’s liberal-with-a-capital-L open container policy lets you roam the entire property with a boozy drink in hand.
Best of Atlanta 2015

Dive Bar: Northside Tavern

Sparkly new buildings are going up on all sides of the iconic Northside Tavern, a grungy box serving up PBR and live blues music nightly—now smack-dab in the middle of the burgeoning Westside.
Old Fourth Distillery

New Booze Producer: Old Fourth Distillery

The three years it took the owners to navigate a permitting labyrinth and renovate their Edgewood facility doesn’t seem so long when you consider that we haven’t had a proper distillery since 1906.
Grocery On Home

Under-The-Radar Music Venue: Grocery On Home

To see a show here, you’ll have to RSVP on Facebook (there are no tickets) and head down a quiet residential street in Grant Park, where homeowner Matt Arnett has turned a former grocery into one of the city’s most intimate music rooms.
Best of Atlanta 2015

New Wine Bar: The Cafe at Cakes & Ale

Jordan Smelt isn’t working with much space inside the bakery adjacent to Cakes & Ale, but he hardly needs more than eight bar stools to charm the New World pants off any California-loving sipper.
Best of Atlanta 2015

New Bar Crawl Destination: Westside

We’re loving the mix of bars now rounding out the galleries, lofts, and designer retailers along Marietta Street and Howell Mill Road. Keep it classy at Cooks & Soldiers or Bocado, serving Basque hard cider and craft cocktails, respectively.
Best of Atlanta 2015

Open-Mic Night: Duets At Kat’s Cafe

Two years ago, when songwriter Kyle Kirkland didn’t have time to prep for a solo gig, he decided to invite some of his talented friends onstage—creating a monthly showcase for the city’s best emerging musicians.
Best of Atlanta 2015

Karaoke Night: Clermont Lounge

The Clermont Lounge is certainly known for worse sins than crooning off-key, and that’s what makes this karaoke night (Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m.) the perfect place to find your inner rock star.
Best of Atlanta 2015

Reason to Visit the Bathroom: The Painted Pin

At first glance, you might think the trippy bathrooms at this preppy Buckhead bowling boutique are some sort of illusion. But then you realize that the only thing separating the men’s and women’s restrooms is the line of mirrors suspended above the sinks.
Best of Atlanta 2015

Drag Show: Stars of the Century

The doors to this riotous drag show at Jungle Atlanta open at 10:30 p.m. every Monday, but the real action doesn’t start for another two hours.
Best of Atlanta 2015

Late-Night Dance Party: Queen of Sheba

While at other clubs bartenders are going on about last calls and dance floors are beginning to thin out, the party is just getting started at this Ethiopian restaurant-slash-lounge off North Druid Hills Road.
H. Harper Station

Personal Endorsement: H. Harper Station

As luck would have it, one of Atlanta’s top cocktail destinations is less than five minutes from my doorstep, in a quiet section of Reynoldstown along the Atlanta BeltLine.