Best Cocktail Bars in Boston

Boston's cocktail bar scene has undergone a genuine transformation in the past decade. The city that once survived on Guinness and sports bars now has a credible claim to one of the best cocktail programs per capita in New England, with a cluster of serious bars in the Back Bay, South End, and the more recently developed Seaport district that compete legitimately with comparable cities. The change happened quietly, driven by a generation of bartenders trained at Boston's better restaurants who eventually opened their own rooms.

The South End is Boston's cocktail neighbourhood in the same way that Logan Square is Chicago's: concentrated, walkable, with enough bars in close proximity that a cocktail evening can move naturally between venues. The neighbourhood's Victorian architecture provides the long, narrow dining rooms that happen to make excellent cocktail bars — intimate enough for conversation, dramatic enough for atmosphere. Drink, which opened in 2008 and helped create the Boston craft cocktail moment, remains the reference point against which the city's other bars measure themselves.

Boston's particular contribution to American cocktail culture is the seasonally obsessive menu. Perhaps because of the city's severe weather, Boston bartenders have developed an intense relationship with the calendar — spring menus that actually taste like spring, winter menus built around spirit-forward warming drinks, autumn menus that treat apple and pear as seriously as any spirits category. This specificity is one of the pleasures of drinking well in Boston across the year.

Price: $15 to $21 per cocktail, consistent across the South End and Back Bay. The Seaport bars run higher ($19 to $26) reflecting their newer construction and corporate clientele. For the best value-to-quality ratio in Boston's cocktail scene, stay south of Copley Square.