Every good bar, it is said, has a great backstory. And The Cottonmouth Club, the new bar opening April 13 at 108 Main downtown, has more than one.

Which might not be neither here nor there to the average bar-goer looking for a good cocktail to drink in an inviting atmosphere. But the inspirations behind Cottonmouth might explain how the bar is positioning itself as something unique to the city's expansive drinking scene while also creating a everyman's drinking lair that the owners say will be the "least cocktail-y cocktail bar" they could devise.

Let's dig in.

The project is a partnership between Reserve 101 co-founder Mike Raymond and bartender Michael Neff working with designer Greg Swanson. Raymond oversees one of the most serious whiskey programs in town at Reserve 101. He met Neff eight years ago at the spirits industry summit Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. Neff is no stranger to the cocktail biz; he opened Ward III and the Rum House in New York as well as the storied Holiday Cocktail Lounge in the city's East Village.

About four years ago Raymond and Neff began talking in earnest about opening a bar together centered around music of 1970s-era New York downtown scene, a hotbed of arts, politics and cultural shakeup. Punk rock, Andy Warhol's Factory, CBGB, Blondie, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, the Ramones – all part of an East Village stew of new sound and iconography that intrigued the partners.

They weren't necessarily tied to bringing a bar fronted by this guiding aesthetic to Houston. They had entertained Nashville, Detroit and Charleston, all ripe for new cocktail bar ideas.

But their ideas eventually coalesced in Houston where they were able to secure a spot, a historic downtown building that formerly housed Barringer Bar. The location, a stone's throw from Allen's Landing, provided other narratives for the project – the beginnings of Houston's commercial industry, historic architecture, and the moody bones that an original 1890 structure can offer. Swanson has added layers of dialogue (vintage wallpaper, a riot of mirrors, eclectic pieces of furniture, homey bric-a-brac) that were still coming together as the bar nears completion. Think of it as a celebration of the avant-garde, Houston roots and an East Village milieu set to a soundtrack of '70s-era rock.

"That's the prevailing ideology," Raymond said of his set piece. "But it doesn't mean it's about the drinks of that era."

Ah, but there will be drinks.

Neff is creating a cocktail menu that celebrates both classic cocktails and familiar drinks with a twist, emboldened by house-made sodas, tinctures, bitters and garnishes. And, owing to Raymond's love of whiskey, there will be a wide varieties of brown spirits, including proprietary bottles and barrel program.

"We're confident this is unlike other bars in Houston or in the country," Raymond said.

You can see for yourself when The Cottonmouth Club opens Friday. The bar's second level is a private event space sporting a wall of eight-foot-tall acrylic paintings that Raymond has done of Houston music makers including Lightnin' Hopkins, Billy Gibbons and Kam Franklin.

And if you walk in hearing the Clash, Lou Reed, Blondie or Springsteen, you'll know where that's coming from.

The Cottonmouth Club, 108 Main, cottonmouthhouston.com; will be open daily from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.