Sick of gentrification, overpriced cosmopolitans and clean bathrooms? New York's drinking scene isn't only about the cliched Sex and the City fashionista hang-outs - dive bars are where the fun is really at. Featuring all-new reviews of 100 of the best dive bars in the five boroughs of New York and surrounding cities including Jersey City and Hoboken, this insider guide takes drinkers where other guidebooks fear to tread.

With New York City being overrun by cosmo-sipping, trance-listening, couch-sprawling hipsters, it's high time to explore the places where real people do real drinking. Learn which dives have the best jukeboxes, the strongest drinks, and the most fascinating clientele.

With charming original illustrations, this book celebrates fifty of the Big Apple’s storied taverns, legendary dives, and bars and the drink recipes that will inspire you to become a regular. For cocktail enthusiasts and those seeking the most real New York watering holes, this is a comprehensive guide to the city’s legendary bars, taverns, and dives across all five boroughs, featuring stories, insider tips, and delicious cocktail recipes. From McSorley’s in the East Village and the West Village’s Ear Inn, to Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens, and Fort Defiance in Red Hook, Brooklyn, this book spans New York’s five boroughs, each entry combining an intoxicating mix of history, local color, and city lore. It includes tips like the best times of day to visit, or whether to choose bar or table, along with signature cocktail recipes, and witty sidebars on topics such as day drinking versus night drinking. Painting an intimate picture of each featured place accompanied by charming illustrations, this book stands out from typical New York City guidebooks on the market and will interest New York City tourists and natives alike, as well as cocktail enthusiasts and general bons vivants.

From the world's largest urinal to the worst drunken story ever told, from the reformed ex-con Big Ol' Pimp to the sink pissing Pudge, Chicago's Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in the Windy City brings you the sights, sounds and smells of over ninety of the city's deliciously divey spots. This essential nightlife guide provides the lowdown on where to find the cheapest drinks, the scariest crowds, the coolest jukeboxes and everything else that makes a dive bar dive. So, if you are sick of the tourist traps and hipster havens listed in those "other" guide books and want to discover "real" drinking Chicago in all its grungy glory, Chicago's Best Dive Bars brings you the whole story, straight, no chaser. Book jacket.

Find your way to the most historic saloons, pubs, and dives of America. These are the watering holes that shaped our nation and created our country. Find the favorite spots of our Founding Fathers, the places where the most well-known celebrities could relax, and the joints that most wouldn’t walk into without a bodyguard. For each bar, you will get a complete history taken directly from the owners and bartenders. You’ll find out what to expect when you go today. You’ll get advice on what drinks and food to order. And we’ll even share insider’s tips so you won’t stand out like a tourist. You’ll also get instant access to brief online documentaries made for each bar so you’ll know before going exactly what to expect, what to order, and who to talk to. Bucket List Bars is the definitive guide to the historic saloons, pubs, and dives of America. Also Included: • QR Code-Linked Documentary Video of Each Bar—A First of its Kind for Guidebooks • QR Code-Linked Videos of Their Signature Drinks So You Know What to Order • Nearby Distractions in the Area To Make Each Visit Complete • Other Notable Bars Nearby To Visit If You Have the Time Featuring: Austin Boston Area Chicago Denver El Paso area Las Vegas Los Angeles New York City Philadelphia San Antonio San Francisco Tucson Area -- This book provides travel-guide like information to business travelers, history buffs and drinking culture enthusiasts. My partner and I have spent the last year traveling the country filming, photographic and documenting almost 50 historic bars from New York to Los Angeles, from 1673 to 1968. We've not only written about these, but also created brief documentaries of each that showcases them in their historic context, provides an assessment of food, drink, decor, etc, and interviews the bartenders and owners. Each chapter will include QR codes linking the reader to these videos that they can watch on their mobile device for free. This will be the first book in a multi-book series based on the same theme.

Explore the fabled past and vibrant present of New York’s literary bar scene Want to know what it’s like to pull up a stool with the likes of Hemingway, Updike, or Capote? Curious how Jay McInerney takes his martini, or where to find Colson Whitehead’s favorite neighborhood bar? For well-read drinkers and boozy bookworms everywhere comes Storied Bars of New York, a photographic and historical celebration of the best literary pubs, cocktail bars, and taverns of New York City. Every chapter profiles an influential bar and comes complete with photographs, a laundry list of the writerly clientele, a recipe for the establishment’s signature cocktail (as well as which authors were likely to order it), and a snapshot of its place in New York culture at the time of its eminence, as demonstrated by quotes from authors and excerpts from magazine reviews. In a city where there is almost too much to explore, this guide will make finding your favorite erudite-cool drinking spot that much easier.

From the James Beard Award-winning author of Bitters and Amaro comes this poignant, funny, and often elegiac exploration of the question, What is the last thing you'd want to drink before you die?, with bartender profiles, portraits, and cocktail recipes. JAMES BEARD AWARD FINALIST • WINNER OF THE TALES OF THE COCKTAIL SPIRITED AWARD® • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE Everyone knows the parlor game question asked of every chef and food personality in countless interviews: What is the last meal you'd want to eat before you die? But what does it look like when you pose the question to bartenders? In Last Call, James Beard Award-winning author Brad Thomas Parsons gathers the intriguing responses from a diverse range of bartenders around the country, including Guido Martelli at the Palizzi Social Club in Philadelphia (he chooses an extra-dry Martini), Joseph Stinchcomb at Saint Leo in Oxford, Mississippi (he picks the Last Word, a pre-Prohibition-era cocktail that's now a cult favorite), and Natasha David at Nitecap in New York City (she would be sipping an extra-salty Margarita). The resulting interviews and essays reveal a personal portrait of some of the country's top bartenders and their favorite drinks, while over 40 cocktail recipes and stunning photography make this a keepsake for barflies and cocktail enthusiasts of all stripes. Praise for Last Call “[Parsons] captures the people and places through stunning photographs and prose. Like a perfectly balanced cocktail, it is equal parts cocktail recipes, travelogue and mixtape.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Measure equal parts travelogue, tell-all, discography, and cocktail companion—in service of an obituary of all patrons—and you have Last Call; Brad Thomas Parsons’s best book yet. Through soulful photos and gritty interviews, he and photographer Ed Anderson capture the rawness, vulnerability, and ecstasy of the metamorphosis between the end of a guest’s night and the beginning of a bartender’s.”—Jim Meehan, author of Meehan’s Bartender Manual and The PDT Cocktail Book “This book is a delight. Last Call shows us the sense of community evoked by bartenders across the country, whose wisdom and tenderness are captured here both in words and beautiful photographs. It made me—an erstwhile bartender and faithful customer—happy to remember that we all have nights when we unexpectedly hear the words ‘last call,’ and that noble and fascinating bartenders are out there waiting to share it with us.”—Alan Cumming