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This is where you can find the best cocktail bars in the U.S.

You'll be surprised to see where the best U.S. cocktail bars are located

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Colorful cocktail on bartop in dark bar
Marcelo Verfe / Pexels

If you haven’t been paying close attention to the American cocktail landscape, you might not realize that it hasn’t always been like this. The cocktail renaissance of the early aughts (between 2003 and 2017) made bartending more of an art form as opposed to simply a job.

While it made the job appealing for creative, pioneering mixologists, it also brought back many classic cocktails that had seemingly been lost to time. While drinks like the Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Boulevardier, and daiquiri have always been around, they (and many other drinks) have had a resurgence in popularity in the last few decades.

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Not only are classic and contemporary mixed drinks popular from coast to coast but so are cocktail bars. Instead of your old-school watering hole or bar where the barkeep only knew how to make a handful of decent drinks, the cocktail bar is a place of innovation and creativity. But with so many cocktail bars from Tacoma to Tampa, how can you possibly know which ones are worth your time? Lucky for you a new study aims to point you in the right direction.

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The best cocktail bars in the U.S.

Whiskey cocktails
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Thanks to the folks at Upgraded Points, we know where to find the best cocktail bars in the U.S. They analyzed thousands of cocktail bar listings on Yelp in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in America to find the absolute best, highest-rated cocktail bars.

You might be surprised to learn that the top-rated city isn’t Los Angeles, New York, or even Chicago. In fact, with a score of 4.63 out of 5, Cincinnati, Ohio is the best-rated city in the country for cocktail bars. It’s followed closely behind by Hartford, Connecticut (4.53), Dayton, Ohio (4.49), Springfield, Massachusetts (4.43), New York City (4.37), Milwaukee, Wisconsin (4.35), Sacramento, California (4.33), Grand Rapids, Michigan (4.32), and Daytona Beach, Florida (4.30). Honolulu, Hawaii with a score of 4.28 rounds out the top 10.

The most cocktail bars per capita

Bartender making cocktails
Stanislav Ivanitskiy / Unsplash

While finding out which cities have the highest-rated cocktail bars is all well and good, if they only have a handful is it worth your time to travel there? Luckily, Upgraded Points also found the cities with the most cocktail bars per capita.

The winner is Durham, North Carolina with 7.95 cocktail bars per 100,000 people. The rest of the top 10 are New Orleans, Louisiana (5.63), Omaha, Nebraska (4.32), Las Vegas, Nevada (4.06), San Antonio, Texas (3.92), El Paso, Texas (3.90), Austin, Texas (3.78), Nashville, Tennessee (3.73), Raleigh, North Carolina (3.59), and Charleston, South Carolina (3.57).

Bottom line

Barman pouring paper plane cocktail
Maksym Fesenko / Shutterstock

While many people believe that New York City is the center of the cocktail universe (and it probably is), if you want to try some of the best-rated cocktail bars you’ll take a trip to Ohio, and if you’re looking for a wider selection, North Carolina (or even Texas) is a great choice.

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Christopher Osburn
Christopher Osburn
Writer
Christopher Osburn is a food and drinks writer located in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. He's been writing professional
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