Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on January 28, 2025.
Disclaimers: Our site uses demographic data, email opt-ins, display advertising, and affiliate links. Please check out our Terms and Conditions for more information. Listed prices and attraction details may have changed since our visit and initial publication.
New York City is the kind of place where you can get anything you want, and on a quick weekend trip to the city, we had our heart set on cocktails.
We’ll be the first to admit that we’d need an entire year in New York, going out seemingly every night, to even get a nice cross-section of them all. So in this visit, we really wanted to be strategic in targeting some of the very best cocktail bars in New York City.
We went to five, and we have to admit, these blew us away all for very different reasons!
Attaboy
Attaboy is our kind of cocktail bar. No frills. Traditional decor. Barely even a sign on the door out front. Speakeasy vibes all around, and you simply tell the bartenders what you like, a dominant flavor or spirit, and they take care of the rest with some of the best cocktails you’ll ever have.
Before we talk about the drinks, we should mention how you get into Attaboy. Their address is correct on the map, and you’re looking for a door immediately to the right of a window with an old tailor’s lettering embossed on it. (During our visit, the door did note Attaboy, and there were people out front, so it is kind of hard to miss. But there are three doors, the first on the left is Attaboy, the middle is apartments, and the third is another bar that they also manage.)
But the key here is to not go inside. Attaboy does not want anyone to walk in unattended without a staff member. You simply wait outside until a staff member comes out to take your name and number. When there is space available (either standing or at a table, typically starting with the former and moving to the latter as space allows), you return to the bar, again wait outside until a staff member comes to collect you, and then head in for cocktail greatness.
So, about the cocktails.
One of the things we love about bars like this is you can work with the bartender on something interesting. I told the bartender I was a beekeeper and like spirit-forward drinks, and I got a lovely Sazerac-esque cocktail with bourbon, absinthe, and honey. Angie also requested something spirit-forward with smokey spicy notes, and we got a killer passionfruit mezcal sour with a habanero tincture and egg white foam that puts most cocktails to shame.
This trend continued with a Scotch-based tiki drink (Laphroaig 10, Aperol, and fruit, anyone?) and a riff off a Last Word with mezcal and ginger to name a few- each getting better than the last.
That said, when thinking of flavor combinations, Attaboy likes to stray close to the classics. I asked if they had any weird flavors or liqueurs they like to work with, and I was cautioned to stick more to conventional than out-there. That said, when heading to this one go in with styles you like (spirit-forward, gimlet style, etc.), a flavor or spirit you favor (passionfruit, whiskey, etc.), and perhaps a cocktail you love and see what variant they can come up with!
Do that, and you’ll be fully prepared for the best experience here. (And, seriously, don’t show yourself in. Just wait outside.)
Attaboy is located at 134 Eldridge Street.
Double Chicken Please
Double Chicken Please is consistently rated not only as one of the best cocktail bars in New York City, but in the entire world (at the time of our visit it was #14 on the 50 Best List, and the highest rated in the USA).
But for those visiting, it is worth noting that this is actually two bars in one. Double Chicken Please’s front room is known as Free Range and the back (the more sought after spot) is called The Coop!
Free Range is entirely walk-in only, and the back bar, which most of the awards recognize for its fine cocktails, offers limited reservations in advance (and we mean limited, like 10 tables a night max) that book up in seconds and a long wait for those who try and get a walk-in table. So go early if you don’t snag a reservation, put your name on the list, grab a drink at Free Range while you wait (if your wait time is shorter, else go get dinner), and then, if you are lucky, get into The Coop to try their menu out!
So, what is the fuss all about?
The Coop at Double Chicken Please uses food as its inspiration and makes cocktails using popular dishes as the basis. Think things like cold pizza, Japanese cold noodles, the Waldorf Salad, Key Lime Pie, Custard Bun, and more- in cocktail form!
While a few of these were misses for us (the cold pizza tasted dominantly of tomato and we were missing the toast and cheese notes), others were perfect iterations that reminded us exactly of the dish (particularly the Japanse cold noodle with rum, pineapple, cucumber, coconut, lime, and sesame oil as well as the Custard Bun with sake, palo cortado sherry, sparkling wine, koji salted egg yolk, cacao, Pu’er tea, and palo santo). We cannot give any higher praise for cocktails, these were just perfection.
Be sure to go hungry, if you can, as Double Chicken Please serves, to no one’s surprise, absolutely killer Taiwanese fried chicken. While we had to miss the sandwiches because we had a big dinner before, the popcorn chicken is a must even if you are completely stuffed. Trust us.
Double Chicken Please is located at 115 Allen Street.
Book Your Trip Today
Flights | Hotels | Apartments | Rental Car | Cruises | Day Tours
Superbueno
If there is any bar that could be described as sensory overload, it would be Superbueno, and we mean it in all of the best ways.
Superbueno is a Mexican American cocktail bar that feels like one-part high-end cocktail bar, one part taqueria, and one part club. You go for the drinks, add on some food, and stay for the environment that is, suffice it to say, vibrant.
We’re talking dim lights, Mexican and other Spanish-speaking music blasted to eleven, everyone singing along (including the bartenders), lights cycling and bopping all over the place, and more. Even if this is not your scene, Superbueno is your scene. It is just fun.
On the food side of the menu, they offer a wide spread of Mexican dishes, including guacamole and chips, flautas, ceviche of the day, al pastor yaki tacos (which we tried for our second dinner- they’re perfect), pork belly tacos, and so much more.
Cocktails here all have a dominant flavor that is Mexican-inspired, which during our visit included inventive drinks like a salted plum and tamarind milk punch, mole negroni, green mango martini, guava vodka and soda, mushroom margarita, and so much more. They’re not so much recreating foods in drink form the way Double Chicken Please does, but simply showcasing some stellar Mexican flavors you wouldn’t expect to find in a cocktail.
We tried the mole negroni, roasted corn sour, and the guava vodka and soda here. Although I admittedly wanted more mole flavor in the negroni, it was a solid negroni with great complexity all around. The corn sour was everything we love about corn, but in a well-balanced drink. But the star was the guava vodka and soda- a drink we would never have ordered if it wasn’t for the bartender giving it the best praise possible. Guava puree, pectinex, acid adjustments, pasilla, vodka, and carbonation- that’s it. It sounds so simple, but it is anything but. Just refreshing, essence of guava with a hit of alcohol along with it.
Our only regret was it was our last stop of the night and we had to cut ourselves off. But, alas, New York City prices do that to you. Next time!
Superbueno is located at 13 1st Avenue.
Mace
Perhaps the largest cocktail bar we visited in New York City was Mace. This bar just keeps going and had a crazy impressive number of seats.
This one caught our eye because every cocktail here is named for an herb, pepper, or fruit found in the cocktail, and each features a dazzling array of other spirits and liquors in combinations we’ve never considered before. Their namesake, Mace, includes Aperol, aquavit, beet juice, orange acid, Thai coconut cordial, and mace mist, to give an example. Other drinks are made featuring licorice, yerba mate, black cardamom, chili de arbol, clove, tonka beans, and more.
Going beyond the cocktails, Mace also has a unique tincture program where you can pick a classic cocktail and add a spice tincture (or two) for a little bit extra. Fancy a G&T with a cardamom tincture? A Manhattan with a porcini drip? Or an Old Fashioned with star anise? You can get just that and more. Oh, and a full food menu to go with it, too! (Note: We’re just riffing flavor and drink ideas here- we did not confirm if these are actual items you can get, they’re just what we’d consider trying.)
While the cocktails were quite unique here, one issue I had was that I expected the namesake of each cocktail to be a dominant flavor, and found that was not necessarily the case. Some felt like they took on secondary notes which, while quite fine for each creation, was unexpected- I think I would’ve preferred every namesake characteristic to be the dominant one.
Still, there are many gems here like the Chili de Arbol (with rum, sweet corn, buttermilk, fig leaf, lime, and chile de arbol) and, one of the best cocktails we had on our entire trip, Licorice (featuring Japanese whisky, pandan liqueur, banana, caramel, licorice miso, and CO2). We don’t even like licorice that much, but the balance of flavors and unique texture from the pandan just made this one stand out in a league of its own.
So while you may not go wrong with most cocktails here, do yourself a favor and get the Licorice if they have it.
Mace is located at 649 E 9th Street.
Bar Goto
Our final New York City cocktail bar we visited was Bar Goto- all about Japanese flavors!
This one is a fun spot for those who like Asian flavors as their ingredients run the spectrum from Japanese gin and whiskey to Shochu, Wakayama Plum, Shisho, Sake, and more. Drinks like Koji-San include shochu, mezcal, lime, celery, and dashi salt and others like the Yuzu sansho sour focus on gin, yuzu, lemon, and sansho pepper.
Where other cocktail bars here look to push the craft in new and inventive ways, this one simply uses great Japanese flavors for the basis of their drinks and pulls of an execution that is as elegant as it is (by this list’s standards at least) simple.
Our only regret was, much like Superbeuno, we could only have one round. The drinks here were too good and truly should’ve warranted a second- if only we had the capacity.
Bar Goto is located at 245 Eldrige Street.
Do you have a favorite cocktail bar in New York City? Comment below to share and we’ll check it out on our next visit!
About Jeremy
About the Author: Jeremy is a full-time travel writer based in Pittsburgh and primary author of this site. He has been to 70+ countries on five continents and seeks out new food, adventure activities, and off-the-beaten-path experiences wherever he travels.