The critical components of a good bourbon bar are simple and easily enumerated: it must serve bourbon, with at least a small collection of truly excellent labels. Nice glasses help. Decor could work in its favor. The bartender may matter. But the intricacies of a great bourbon bar are myriad. The delicate parts of such a fine machine are numinous and ever-changing, but there are three in Savannah, GA, which should be recommended.
You enter The Alley Cat, unsurprisingly, from an alleyway entrance on the backside of the ghostly shops on Bouquefort street between Bull and Montgomery. Ideally, it is a Monday night about a half-hour before the big game (it doesn’t matter which big game, there’s always a big game) so the sparse yet charming interior is empty save for Absolom, the bartender. Absolom is finishing a complicated cocktail for their lone customer, a middle-aged man lost in his phone, utterly uninterested in the precise and thoughtful effort Absolom puts into this drink. Bathed in the amber glow from their whiskey collection, Absolom finishes the drink with a reserved flourish and pushes it across the bar to the neglectful customer, then turns to you. You recognize, in an instant, a kindred spirit.
It’s not just his remarkably Faulknerian name. If you’re from Chicago, you realize you have stepped into that existential space occupied by legendary waterholes across the globe where innovation and classic technique are equally respected and equally observed. You have been here before—even if you haven’t—when you took a stool at The Victor or The California Clipper; you recognize the soul that seared through Dr Lupin’s in Paris and the nameless ex-pat bar tucked into a lost space somewhere in Barcelona that’s only open between 1 and 4 am.
Absolom could be magically transported to any of those establishments and belong there. So you do what you always do. You surrender to artistry. You give him the briefest description of your flavor palette, tell him how you like your coffee, and let him concoct your drink from thin air, no recipe, just riffing. He goes to work, a watchmaker, a surgeon, an alchemist—bottle after bottle seems to float above the bar, dancing over the mixing jar, to fill the frigid crucible before him.
Finally, he presents a drink impossible to describe, an untitled brew never before constructed that will vanish down your gullet to never be built again, a once-in-a-lifetime cocktail which you know contains at least three different whiskies. With the first sip, it satisfies in your heart a yearning you never even know was there like a low-frequency hum that’s been there your whole life. You got used to it. It became sonic wallpaper. But now, this bouquet of flavors, this symphony of phenolic spirits silences that hum, and you are suddenly aware of it, suddenly relieved, and the peace, the pax spiritus, is unparalleled.
At The Fitzroy, you recognize a revamped space. No idea what was there before (sure, you could ask, but does it matter?). It is a bar retuned by someone who doesn’t drink. Their bar snacks are overpriced and silly. And their whiskey collection, while pretty good, is sparse. Narrow. They are the bottles that appeal to the beverage manager’s boyfriend’s snobbish cohort who read about them on BuzzFeed. Still, you’re early to a meeting around the corner, and you don’t have anything to do for a half an hour, and the bartender looks cool.
And he is cool. Despite the parenthetical whiskey collection behind him, the guy manages to knock out a respectable boulevardier. You’re the only person there (this is a trick, your talents emblématiques), and the barkeep is talky. You gravitate rather quickly to whiskey, and he pulls down a bottle of High West Silver Oat Whiskey, which you’ve heard of but never tasted. Without even asking, he pours a thin sliver of the drink into a rocks glass and slides it across the bar. It doesn’t smell like whiskey. It smells like mescal got drunk on moonshine. You both get excited about what you can do with it, and suddenly there’s a marg set-up but made with the high west, and it’s incredible. You spend the next fifteen minutes trying to come up with a name, but you have to pay and go to your meeting, and when you get out, he’s not there, so you go to Sorry Charlies for a dozen little friends.
But while you and the bartender were nerding out over Oat Whiskey, he took down bottle after bottle to talk about them, about their mash profile and their nose. You realize that maybe the bar is experiencing covid logistics because this guy knows his juice. Perhaps you were quick to judge, and let’s not forget the boulevardier was top-notch. Maybe next time you’re here (April? May?), you’ll drop in to see how things are going, to finally name this new whiskey Rita.
You go to Boomy’s on a Tuesday night because your wife is at a thing, and you’re alone and starving to death, and it’s 9:45, and everything is closed. Then you remember this dive bar on Congress from the last time you were in Savannah. That was also on a Tuesday night. You closed them down at three in the morning and then drove straight to the emergency room because you ended up drinking with visiting chefs, which is a mistake. That night you discovered that Boomy’s is a multifaceted magical wonderland of cheap drinks, an Irish bar, a pugilistic jukebox, and incredible Thai food. So you Uber over, and you walk into a nearly empty bar, take your absolutely favorite seat (at the short end of the L, on the corner, looking down the well) and look up into one of the broadest whiskey collections you’ve ever seen.
You turn around to check the door—maybe you’re in the wrong bar. Nope. It’s Boomy’s, the collegiate dive. Yep, there’s an addict turned away by the bouncer. Yep, there’s the jukebox everyone is fighting over. Yep, there’s the wrinkled copper bar top you can barely level your glass on, yep, there’s a fucking four-leaf neon clover, and yep, there’s the menu featuring Green Curry and Bon M’hi and damn.
The barkeep hands you their whiskey list, and you’re left to wander through this alphabetized three-page small type lexicon of fine bourbons. They have the entire Jeffersonian fleet; a whole hog herd of Whistle Pig; Rabbit Hole, Uncle Nearest, Noah’s Mill—all of it. You’re in the barkeep’s corner where he’s cashing out customers and running his own playlist when the jukebox is catching its breath (mostly Darius Rucker, but who’s judging), so he spends a lot of time leaning on the bar talking to you about whiskey. How does a 28-year-old guy know so much? He’s a fucking encyclopedia. He serves you a Sweetwater 420 (which is good, but not as good as the Two Tides Sixfoot Hazy IPA, which is dazzlingly unforgettable) and a shot of Blanton’s that only costs $11 bucks, and you begin to doubt your sanity.
The curry comes in a to-go box, and you are suddenly afraid you’ll have to eat outside because of Covid. Still, the bartender chuckles and says it’s covid-related, but you can eat at the bar. The curry is fantastic. Some of the best Thai you’ve had.
You get your hands on the jukebox feed and decide to show these kids what’s what: Soledad Brothers, Dan Aurbach, Early ZZ Top, Taj Mahal. You expect someone to drop a couple bucks to knock you off the stream in favor of [insert shitty mumblecore here]. You realize the bar—and I mean the entire bar—has filled up with industry. You don’t know how you know, but the bar is two deep with chefs, Bev Mans, barkeeps, bussers, and off to the side owners and GMs trying to look cool, and you realize you’ve discovered Savannah’s answer to Koop’s in New Orleans. They’re grooving to the music because this is the shit they blast in the kitchen.
And they’re ordering beer and whiskey like it’s the end of the world. Boom, there goes a $40 shot of Jefferson’s Ocean Voyage. Boom, there goes an $80 shot of Whistle Pig 15-year. Boom, a round of Jamesons. Boom, three whiskey sours. Your corner-bar companions whom you’ve never met order whiskey shots and slide one over to you even though you haven’t said a word to them. It’s just that it’s a Tuesday, and they’re happy, and just, Goddam.
When your attorney pulls up out front and honks you out the door, you drop into the passenger seat with a big fat grin. You’re glowing with joy. Shining with bon vivant.
“Well, somebody had a good night,” says counsel.
“Yes, somebody did. Yes indeed.”