A lot of bars try a lot harder to be as casual and comfortable as Long Island bar. Co-owned by one of the spirits professionals credited with creating the cosmo, it follows that the famed NYC favorite would serve inventive cocktails, which also happen to be good. Classics like the gimlet, up, are great, too, and LIB has even turned that other divisive new/old classic into a fun frozen option for the summer.
New York has enough bar categories, themes and conceits to fill the Gowanus Canal, but none dredge up as many connotations as the cocktail bar. Impressions are in the eye of the beholder. To one mind, a cocktail bar might evoke notions of trench coats, subway grate steam and flickering neon signs. To the next, it scans like a gathering place for Monopoly men. And to the last, it might recall simple gin and tonics served in plastic cups at the dive because this doesn’t always have to be a whole thing.
In any case, a cocktail needs only to have two ingredients (not including the glass) to constitute entry to the form, and NYC has plenty of places to drink ‘em. These are the best.
RECOMMENDED: See all of the best bars in NYC