It's simple: These are our favorite bars, new and not so much, which we've inducted into our growing Hall of Fame. Jeff Gordinier and Kevin Sintumuang are our lead barflies, drinking at dozens of places over the past year, with a lot of help from trusted friends. Here's where to start the next tab, in alphabetical order by city.

Austin

The Medicina Latina served at Half Step. Half Step

Half Step

Julia Black's Texas go-to.

Ten years ago, Rainey was just another sleepy residential Austin street. Today the colorful houses on this half-mile stretch play host to the city's hippest drinkers and favorite local bands. Your best bet is this little blue bungalow, whose name pays homage to the Grateful Dead song. Prop an elbow on the padded bar and watch your cocktail materialize from the fresh ingredients cooling on ice. Pick the bartender's choice. Or call for the Medicina Latina, which mixes tequila, mezcal, ginger, and lime to cure what ails you. As the neon sign in the window will tell you, "You earned it." 75½ Rainey Street Where to crawl next: Craft Pride down the block for beers and Detroit pizza.

Bloomington, Indiana

Nick's English Hut

John Winterman's original college love.

Nick's was the first bar I considered aspirational. Dating from 1927, it had an allure that hinted at something more seasoned than the frat bars, live-music venues, and degenerate pool halls I frequented. It's a sports bar, sure, in a varnished, waxy way—you walk in and (aside from the big screens) it could be 1958, with "Branch" McCracken's Hurryin' Hoosiers still playing ball. On nongame nights, the crowd is decidedly grayer, wiser, and more old-fashioned. Nick's is known for its Bucket Brigade, which hangs over the bar and is the ultimate in privilege—instead of downing ice-cold Buds in frozen mason jars, you sit down and have your own pail, with your name on it. I think you have to inherit a bucket; you certainly couldn't buy one. I left Bloomington soon after I turned twenty-three, never making the Bucket Brigade. I aspire to it still, though, and make it back to Nick's about once a year, decidedly grayer, wiser. 423 East Kirkwood Avenue What you're having: Nothing fancier than a Bud.

Brooklyn

Diamond Reef

Kevin Sintumuang falls for casually proper cocktails.

The Penichillin' sums up this place. That's the frozen, slushy-machine version of the internationally famous, de facto Serious Cocktail Person calling card that is the Penicillin, a smoky mix of Scotch, honey, and ginger created by co-owner Sam Ross at Milk & Honey, the original Serious Cocktail Person bar. The drinks are just as good, but the vibe is much more chill. As if the food truck and colorful Miami-meets-Cali-in-a-former-Brooklyn-auto-body-shop ambience didn't clue you in. 1057 Atlantic Avenue What you're (also) having: The deliciously dirty steakhouse martini.

Chicago

Milk Room

What Kevin sipped is gone but not forgotten.

The Venetian Gothic woodwork in the Chicago Athletic Association hotel lobby sets up that they-don't-make-'em-like-they-used-to feeling. It hits you full on when you take one of the eight seats at a bar discreetly tucked behind a wall of stained-glass windows and sip something decades or even a century old. Milk Room is a tiny altar to the heady, rarefied world of vintage spirits and amaros. The Campari and Fernet from the '70s that are used in some of the cocktails are gentler—modern versions use extracts; not so much back then, the bartender tells me. A 1927 Old Hermitage sour-mash whiskey had a whiff of funk and an uncanny roundness—this is what history tastes like. 12 South Michigan Avenue Where to crawl next: The Cherry Circle Room around back for a burger and a manhattan.

Lost Lake

Kevin got brain freeze. He liked it.

If you've ever experienced winter in Chicago, you understand the need for the escape of a great tiki bar. Cofounded by Paul McGee, who is behind many of the city's great watering holes (including Milk Room, above), Lost Lake is one of the best in the country. There's just enough fantasy—Martinique wallpaper, staff in tropical shirts, a graphic, kitschy menu—but the real transportation happens in the glass, with the intricate play of a broad spectrum of rums and fresh juices. 3154 West Diversey Avenue Pro tip: Don't skip the banana daiquiri.

Midwestern tropical vibes at the always hopping Lost Lake. Peter Ranvestel

District of Columbia

The Columbia Room's Watercourse Way drink, paired with custard. April Greer

The Columbia Room

Jeff Gordinier's love for fancy cocktails is rekindled.

You may whine that you're weary of all that complicated mixology stuff, but when you come to your senses, keep in mind that the man in charge of the cocktailing at the Columbia Room (now upstairs in a multichambered, private-boothed space on Blagden Alley after moving from its previous location) is Derek Brown, the chief spirits advisor to the National Archives. That's right—he's the bartending equivalent of the United States poet laureate. Sitting down for the liquid tasting menu at the Columbia Room is like taking a tutorial in storytelling from Colson Whitehead. Descriptions that spring to mind: erudite, theatrical, state-of-the-art, and uncomplicatedly delicious. 124 Blagden Alley NW Pro tip: Grab dinner at the neighboring Dabney and learn what mid-Atlantic cuisine is.

Houston

Julep

Jason Tesauro would like another.

Between devil-may-care thoughtlessness and flair-first egoism is the bull's-eye of barmanship. Julep has reverence for the past yet manages to serve elegant, unpretentious drinks. It starts with architecture. There are cushy booths and a curvilinear bar that draws you to its bosom. The drinks, too, have impeccable structure: Jefferson cups, chipped ice, fine garni. Look up and a polished copper canopy winks like a lady's lashes, reminding you that Julep's owner, Alba Huerta, has her eye on every detail. 1919 Washington Avenue Worth the splurge: The julep is great, but the exquisitely composed, $20 Ramos gin fizz is the quiet champion.

Hudson, New York

BackBar

In which Jeff discovers tiki's true purpose.

Plenty of rum palaces across the country are devoted to hauling up the sunken treasures of tiki. BackBar, which consists primarily of a cluster of picnic tables fenced off from the main drag in the sleepy capital of Hudson Valley bohemia, nails the spirit of tiki instead. It's a place where you might burn off a lazy Sunday afternoon discussing politics with a local law-enforcement officer who also happens to be a drag queen (true story) while you order round after round of Southeast Asian food from the chefs Zakary Pelaccio and Kevin Pomplun so that your third Where There's Smoke, There's Fire doesn't put you into a daze too fast. You're hours from the shore but you feel like a beachcomber. 347 Warren Street Pro tip: Order the beef rendang.

Little Rock

The White Water Tavern

Georgia Pellegrini's idea of real Americana.

The White Water Tavern is perched along railroad tracks in a forgotten part of town. Streetlamps cast a movie-set glow onto a '40s Oldsmobile in the parking lot, where cars are parked like dusty fixtures that never left. A string of lights tossed in a bush and a cat greet you at the entrance. The tap and the jukebox are both down. But for a sum total of nine dollars, you get a stiff drink and admission into a room with red canoes suspended from the ceiling and a retro bearded guy with cuffed jeans and slicked-back hair unloading his original songs with the help of an old acoustic guitar, his voice enchanting, the poetry of the South. There are no singed orange peels held over pretentious glassware here. This is Americana as it should be—raw, a little ugly, but as honest as it gets. 2500 West Seventh Street Pro tip: After dark, wind your way by foot across one of Little Rock's three Technicolor pedestrian bridges and look back at the city skyline.

Los Angeles

Everson Royce Bar

In which Jeff considers moving to L.A.

Richard Hugo, great poet of the West, once wrote "The Only Bar in Dixon," which opens with a line that distills what so many of us seek in bars: "Home. Home. I knew it entering." It's how I felt entering Everson Royce Bar. There was almost a bear hug of a welcome from bar manager Othon Nolasco. There was a back patio that spoke of summer breezes, and there were bar snacks, courtesy of James Beard Award-winning Matt Molina, good enough to make me want to cancel my dinner reservation across town. Home, in other words. 1936 East Seventh Street What you're having: Something from the deep spirits list.

Miami Beach

The Broken Shaker

Save a chaise longue for Kevin.

The bar itself is tiny. A Caribbean-like cave of a place, cabinets and shelves stacked to the ceiling with quality spirits and bitters, a handful of stools, and an enticing bowl of punch front and center. Get a glass of that, or any of the high-wire-act cocktails that always, beguilingly, seem to work—a mole mezcal manhattan; a mushroom old-fashioned; drinks with kale or celery juice—and then head outside to the expansive courtyard. Find your little spot under the trees or by the pool and wonder: Why can't the rest of Miami Beach be this understatedly and effortlessly cool? 2727 Indian Creek Drive Where to crawl next: Sweet Liberty for the best piña colada in the South.

New York City

The Bar Room at the Beekman Hotel

Jeff would come here just for the Instagrams.

Everyone does it. They can't resist. They walk in and they look up. Rising above them like some white-railinged, unfolding-accordion, time-warp tableau from Christopher Nolan's Inception, the atrium of this Financial District showpiece practically dares you not to Instagram it. But the bar would be nothing more than a pretty view were it not for the attention to detail at ground level. Service is spot-on, and the drinks, courtesy of chef Tom Colicchio's team, twist the classics just enough that they never slide into grandpa-in-a-tracksuit garishness. Nurse your Luigi Ferrarese and marvel at your good fortune while Edgar Allan Poe gazes mournfully from the eastern wall. 5 Beekman Street Pro tip: Have dinner at Keith McNally's Augustine, also in the hotel.

Drink at the Beekman, tally the Björn Wallander

Death & Co.

Where Kevin ponders life and cocktails.

"It's going to take some time for your eyes to adjust." This can be heard many times as folks greet their friends entering through the heavy wooden door and thick drapes that block out the outside world. If the name wasn't an indication, Death & Co. is dark. A few crystal chandeliers and candles barely offer enough light. But once you gain your night vision in this richly detailed Gothic space, you'll get to dive into its menu. Trust in the juggling of ingredients as disparate as rhum agricole and Chartreuse—the bar's been doing it for a decade, which is no easy task in N. Y. C. 433 East Sixth Street Where to crawl next: Amor y Amargo down the street for, yep, an amaro.

ROKC's Smoke cocktail, made of bourbon, ancho chile, Cynar, and, yep, smoke. Zenith Richards

ROKC

In which Jeff discovers many things can hold liquid.

Drinks in eggshells and conch shells. Drinks in lightbulbs and ceramic skulls: ROKC, in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of way-uptown Manhattan, would feel like a shrine to gimmickry were it not for the warm hospitality and cool meticulousness of proprietor Shige Kabashima, who brings a sense of humor to the ice-chipping, eyedropper-squirting precision of Tokyo-style cocktailing. As if the expert drinks were not enough, you can slurp while you sip. The name stands for Ramen Oysters Kitchen Cocktails, and it fits: The place rokcs. 3452 Broadway Pro tip: Trust us on the "Tomato/Clam" drink.

Slowly Shirley

Home to one of Jeff's favorite martinis.

Maybe everyone dreams of having a drink in a place that no longer exists, which is to say: Hollywood circa 1947. A hushed shrine to such lost glamour can be found, ironically enough, right beneath one of the bros-on-the-loose chug huts that a lot of grown men ache to escape from. To get there, you walk through the front door at the Happiest Hour, a bar in Greenwich Village; you immediately sidestep the Happiest Hour itself, veer right, and feel your pulse relax as you descend a staircase into Slowly Shirley, an oasis that is more Hepburn than Kardashian. Downstairs, 121 West Tenth Street What you're having: Bartender Jim Kearns's FAF martini is, yes, absurdly expensive at thirty bucks, thanks to Beefeater Burrough's Reserve gin, but that and a perfect California-style cheeseburger might represent the closest you're going to get to a cosmic portal.

Bar Goto

Looking for Jeff? Chances are he's here.

Bar Goto's signature drink is a Japanese interpretation of a martini with sake as the foundation and a cherry blossom floating Ophelia-ishly in the cold, clear liquid. A few sips encourage the mind to venture deeper into Kenta Goto's clever, subtle drink menu—to the New Jack City and the Melon Ball. What really extends evening into night and unfastens one's inhibitions, though, is a friendly, unflappable "Welcome back, man" mode of service. For a lot of knowledgeable drinkers in New York, Goto has become the go-to. 245 Eldridge Street Pro tip: Get the heap of chicken wings, all crunchy-sticky with miso.

Octopus sashimi at Bar Goto, where the snacking is as serious as the imbibing. Peter Pabon

Pittsburgh

Gooski's

John Allison enjoys the non-gentrification.

Gooski's crackles with the kinetic energy of a dive bar that makes its nut in volume, not markup. The bartenders command the dark, smoky room with the no-nonsense authority of French bistro waiters, able to discern orders over the punk-rock jukebox playlist competing with whatever game is on TV. It's plunked on a steep street in the echt-Pittsburgh neighborhood of Polish Hill, which will never appear gentrified even if it becomes so. "If you needed Yelp to find this place, you don't belong here" is among the passive-aggressive edicts chalked on the wall, but once you're in, you belong. 3117 Brereton Street Pro tip: Try the pierogies.

Spirit

John gets lost in the adult fun house.

Spirit inhabits a former Moose lodge in Lawrence­ville, Pittsburgh's working-class neighborhood voted most likely to resemble Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But banish the notion of air-quotes irony permeating the multilevel venture: It welcomes all in the name of great pizza for carnivores and vegans alike, cold beer, quality cocktails, live music, local art, and something festive always percolating. 242 51st Street Pro tip: Head outside to the decommissioned school bus with a free jukebox full of local music and a petite bar.

Providence

The Magdalenae Room

Jeff lives out his Dashiell Hammett fantasies.

Sometimes you go to a bar to socialize. Sometimes you go to a bar to get lost. With its cloistered hum and crepuscular lighting and high-backed booths, this discreet refuge in the Dean Hotel welcomes you with a sort of film-noir nod that conveys, "Don't worry, we won't tell a soul." You can whisper to your Bobby Burns in peace. As for that clanging noise in your heart, well, maybe the Bénédictine will help you with that. The Dean Hotel, 122 Fountain Street Pro tip: If you get buzzed enough, there's a hidden karaoke room a few steps away.

San Francisco

Bar Agricole

Where Kevin communes with the spirits.

It is good to be reminded, every once in a while, that booze is an agrarian product. Which is why whenever I'm in San Francisco, I find my way to Bar Agricole (translation: Farm Bar). To start: the Ti' Punch, a simple classic that consists of nothing but sugar, the pith of a lime, and a rhum agricole from Martinique that has that whiff of freshly cut sugarcane. Then wind your way through other rums and calvadoses that capture the essence of the earthly products they were born from. It'll make you swear off the industrially produced stuff. 355 Eleventh Street Pro tip: Get there early or get there late, but always get the oysters.

Santa Barbara

Elsie's

Jeff finally stepped through the door.

A woman of taste and depth introduced me to Elsie's one summer night during a stretch of time when I was working as a music columnist in Santa Barbara, a city where the lotus-eaters prefer to feast on tacos. It will tell you a bit about Elsie's that I lived only a few blocks away from the building and I'd walked by it numerous times, and yet I had no idea there was a bar inside. The introduction was a dangerous one for a man on a perpetual deadline, what with a pool table and cold beer serving as a constant threat to productivity. I'm not in Santa Barbara anymore, but Elsie's still is, and if you drop by, you may linger for longer than you'd anticipated. Years, even. 117 West De La Guerra Street Pro tip: There's a Ms. Pac-Man machine if you need more of an excuse to hang around.

Seattle

Shellfish and a sparkling something have always been unbeatable. Jim Henkens

Barnacle Bar

Claire Dederer goes deep.

Where an off-duty Steve Zissou might drink. Whitewashed and decorated in a tightly edited palette of red and blue, Renee Erickson's Barnacle Bar is tucked into a windowless space that should be a gloomy drag. Instead, from the moment you're offered a complimentary dish of plain potato chips, you feel like you're on a very mod Mediterranean holiday. The food leans toward Spain: There's a pig in a vise (okay, a jamón serrano) crowning the bar; fat sardines are served in the tin; the olives are meaty and green. The drinks side of the menu hails from Italy, with a deep, smart wine list. Cocktails are often herbaceous, usually amaro-heavy, uniformly delicious, a little challenging, and just right for this jaunty secret clubhouse. 4743 Ballard Avenue NW Pro tip: Roll in early and commandeer the bar's single table, tucked into an alcove.

Walland, Tennessee

The Wine Tunnel at Blackberry Farm

Jeff burrows into a baller drinking experience.

On that day when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse begin their grim stampede, pray that you are somewhere in the vicinity of the western foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Bunkered beneath the bucolic expanse of Blackberry Farm, the fabled gastro-utopia of the American South, lies a stockpile of intoxicants that ought to last for centuries. The farm lovingly cradles some 155,000 bottles of wine and 2,743 bottles of bourbon, a good portion of that secreted away in 170 feet of a temperature-controlled tunnel connecting various underground cellars. Dizzying in scope and depth, it's a vinous sanctuary that looks like it was conceived by the protagonist of a Tom Wolfe novel. It's not a bar per se, but take a seat in the barn built above it and the property's eight full-time sommeliers will help you tap into the library at your heels. 1471 West Millers Cove Road Pro tip: Staying at Blackberry Farm? Visit the puppy farm. Seriously.

Woburn, Massachusetts

The smoking (literally) Oracle cocktail at Baldwin and Sons in Woburn, Massachusetts. The Baldwin and Sons Trading Co.

The Baldwin and Sons Trading Co.

Luke O'Neil makes a beeline out of Boston.

Picture the best Chinese-takeout restaurant you've been to: dumplings and thick-cut bacon in garlic, ginger, and Sichuan peppers. Now put that inside a New England Colonial mansion built in 1661. When you tack on one of the best cocktail bars in Massachusetts, it's almost an embarrassment of riches. Opened in late 2015, this library-style lounge is an offshoot of the already renowned Baldwin Bar, just downstairs, from Ran Duan, whose parents run the restaurant. Cocktails come in meticulously stage-dressed vessels: brown and bitter recipes in flasks served in cigar boxes, or a glass egg filled with Aperol, absinthe, and grapefruit served on a bed of flowers. It's twenty-five minutes outside Boston, but the cab fare is worth it. 2 Alfred Street Inside info: Too far of a ride? Plans are under way to update their Sichuan Garden restaurant in Brookline with a rum-focused cocktail bar.

Illustrations by Robbie Porter. This article originally appeared in the June/July '17 issue of Esquire.