If you haven't noticed, we are in the middle of a cocktail revolution in this country. A wave of bitters and tinctures and hard-to-find spirits has spread so quickly and widely that no one has stopped to take its measure. Until now. A year ago, we at GQ decided to rank the nation's very best cocktail bars—in order. So we traveled. A lot. Enough miles to circle the earth, the moon, and then some. We explored New York and San Francisco, where the renaissance began ten years ago. But also Nashville and Houston and Decatur and Healdsburg, where it has washed up and settled. Recommendations came from bartenders, writers, blogs—anyone who knew the difference between a Gibson and a Vesper. In the end, we visited twenty-one cities and 102 bars. We drank no fewer than three cocktails at each, but usually many more. Most we tried to limit ourselves to a few sips, but some we finished—the pull of a good cocktail was just too great. The winners are listed here (and in more robust form on GQ.com). But first, a few lessons learned after twelve months of serious drinking:

Today's bartenders don't just pour drinks. They make their own tinctures and bitters. They scour eBay for out-of-print recipe books and antique glassware. They are alchemists and madmen.

If you don't like cocktails, you've been drinking the wrong ones. Like jazz, another great American idea, they were built for riffing. For variation. They aren't just sweet like mojitos or boozy like martinis. They can be sour. Savory. Herbaceous. Bitter. Spicy. Dry. Smoky. There is nothing in a glass more versatile.

Ice may be the most important part of a cocktail. In most drinks, it's the majority of what's in your glass. Any place that uses cubes with holes in the middle or with oversize dimples can't make a good cocktail—it's physics: The stuff just melts too fast. The best places carve ice out of huge blocks or use Kold-Draft machines, which produce perfect crystal-clear cubes.

Old-timey accuracy matters, but the drink matters more. Handlebar mustaches, arm garters, entrances with passwords—these things can quickly sour into preciousness. If a drink was good—balanced and true—we drank. If it wasn't, we didn't.

Bartenders are better concierges to their cities than actual concierges.

Charcoal pills do nothing. Sleep is the only hangover cure, and the noon checkout time at hotels, for that reason, is cruel.

Most important: We learned that every city in this country deserves a bar that cares deeply about the craft of the cocktail. It brings the social fabric of a metropolis together and adds to the culinary allure of a town in a way that a good beer bar, wine bar, or dive bar just can't. There's no substitute for a well-made drink. There really isn't. If you don't believe us, let's discuss it one evening over a Gin Gin Mule.