New Orleans, LA
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The craft-cocktail picks, per NOLA.com's Times-Picayune reporting on the North America's 50 Best Bars list and Gambit's bar coverage.
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Press picks, until locals rank their own Top 5s. Sourced from the local food press. As seen in NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, Gambit (nola.com), and Garden & Gun. Updated September 2026.
Jewel of the South · French Quarter
#6 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2024, repeat 'Best Bar in the South USA,' and James Beard Outstanding Bar winner under Chris Hannah.
Cure · Freret
McNulty: ranked #47 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2024. The Freret Street pioneer that won the James Beard Outstanding Bar Program in 2018.
Peychaud's at The Celestine · French Quarter
Neal Bodenheimer's Cure Co. Classic-cocktail bar in a French Quarter courtyard. The Peychaud's bitters reference point for New Orleans cocktails.
French 75 Bar · French Quarter
The French Quarter lounge attached to Arnaud's, home to a James Beard Award-winning bar program and a long list of classic and New Orleans cocktails, from the French 75 to the old Roffignac. White-jacketed bartenders work an old-world room of dark wood and mirrors, making it a stop for the ceremony as much as the drink.
Cane and Table · French Quarter
A French Quarter cocktail den built around proto-tiki drinks, tracing the history of tropical and rum-based cocktails from before the mid-century tiki boom. The rotating menu leans on rum, spice, and Caribbean flavors, served in a candlelit courtyard-and-brick room on lower Decatur. A rum lover's stop from the Cure Co. team.