The Best Cocktail Bars In Atlanta, Georgia

Kimball House occupies an old railway station depot in Decatur. A raw bar with quality cuisine, Kimball House is the type of place that serves oysters alongside flute glasses of champagne, all while carrying everything from coffee to pastries to gin gimlets to the guests at the next table. Atlanta Magazinehappily awarded the establishment with a number two ranking on its ‘50 Best Bars List’. Stop in for a cocktail, but scan the extensive list of selections on their impressive menu. Kimball House Cocktail | © romanlily/Flickr

This secretive speakeasy style bar is ideal for laid back cocktails, puffing on cigars, and relaxing in elegance. Buried amid the dive bars raucousness of young and turbulent Buckhead, Prohibition offers an escape from the college crowds home for fall, winter, or summer break. With a bartending staff that takes pride in its work, Prohibition’s specialty drinks are not to miss. So, how do you get in? All you have to do is secure the code of the night, punch it into the dialing antique phone booth out front, and make of the night what you will.

A Decatur bar, Paper Plane does justice to this ultra crafty corner of the ‘A.’ The bar makes use of a menu that is thick with cocktail recipes: some date back over one hundred years, others brand new. It certainly does not hurt that cocktail expert and local barkeep Paul Calvert leads at Paper Plane’s helm, slinging top-notch, unique mixed creations and using only the most exquisite craft alcohol labels. The vintage vibe complements its laid-back feel and overall creativity.

Next on our list is a swanky jazz club, located within Atlanta’s hip Midtown area, called Churchill Grounds. Fittingly, the bar is catty-corner to the famous Fox Theatre, which tops our list of ‘The Best Live Music Venues in Atlanta, GA.’ Drawing some serious talent and established artists, the intimate club also hosts up and comers; either way, fine wines and cigar-friendly environs build upon the cocktail selection, all merging together smoothly amid the backdrop of late-40’s jazz music.

This bar stands out for its architectural design, the original structure commissioned in 1900 and inhabited by Victor Hugo Kriegshaber, an instrumental developer of a far younger Atlanta. Wrecking Bar’s late Victorian style does not, in anyway however, dictate its panache or flavor combinations. We’ll prove it; the ‘drawn and quartered’ is crafted with jalapeño-infused vodka, while their ‘in the park’ cocktail includes fresh basil, lemon, grapefruit, and agave with a gin base. The bar also has a monster selection of whiskey that seems to stretch on for miles. Wrecking Bar Brewpub | © Maura Neill/Flickr

Located on Midtown’s Howell Mill Road in the Westside Urban Market shopping center, JCT. Kitchen and Bar is primarily a Southern restaurant, but its overwhelmingly popular bar stands out for several reasons. First of all, JCT.’s rooftop is spectacular, one of the best open-air hangouts in the city with live music on Thursdays. The bar features a seasonal cocktail menu, its summer selection filled with minty and lemony creations like their ‘little Havana,’ which contains Myer’s Platinum Rum, Luxardo cherry liqueur, Georgia strawberries, and, of course, a lime to top it all off.