The 14 Best Cocktail Bars in Asheville

Two drinks come sized for two people: the Manhattan Service and the Japanese Highball. Order one if you’re sharing.

From the rest of the list, try the Tattletale, the Creature Negroni or the Midnight Bouquet. The Midnight Bouquet is añejo and mezcal with grapefruit bitters.

Owner Chall Gray took the name from Harry Johnson, who published a bartending manual in 1882. Johnson wrote that a drink should reach the guest quickly. Service here is still quick, and it doesn’t feel rushed.

There’s trivia on Sundays and board games on Wednesdays.

Directions

Order the drink named after the bar. The Golden Pineapple is bourbon, overproof rum, amaro and tepache, a fermented pineapple drink. Wake Up Call is blanco tequila, absinthe, jalapeño and watermelon.

The zero-proof drinks have their own section, headed NO BOOZE. The Mood Swing is built like a gin and tonic, on lavender and butterfly pea.

Nothing on the menu says what goes into the Secret Mystery Shooter. Ask.

Every October the bar becomes The Haunting of Golden Pineapple, with its own cocktail list.

Directions

Start with the Studs Lonigan, which the menu calls an evil twin of a White Negroni. The Le Guin and Tonic is gin and elderflower with grapefruit essence.

Chall Gray, Jay Sanders and Lucia Gray opened it seven years after Little Jumbo. Reading carrels line one side, with curved booths across from them. The mirrored parlor up front takes reservations.

Directions

You don’t have to spend that much. A frozen piña colada costs $12.

Chris Frosaker opened the bar in 2023, in a 2,500-square-foot former metal shop. People come back for the Manta Ray and the Jungle Bird on Acid. The Test Pilot follows the recipe Donn Beach wrote down in 1941.

Jason Rojas and Allison Cochran make the mugs by hand. The Rum Club seats ten people at a time for rum tastings.

Bring friends. This bar is more fun with a group.

Directions

The menu has four sections: nineties drinks, coffee drinks, features and throwbacks.

Start with the coffee drinks. The Carajillo is Licor 43 with espresso and orange. The Espresso Martini finishes with Amarula and costs $15.

For something stronger, the Half Nelson is bourbon, zucca (a rhubarb amaro), amontillado sherry and smoke. The throwbacks are the strangest part of the list. One steeps Zubrowka vodka with Earl Grey and ginger. Another is a clarified drink with absinthe and Ardbeg Scotch.

Directions

Kala Brooks wrote the cocktail list. In 2021 she became general manager of all three bars.

The Sexy Old Fashioned mixes High West Double Rye and Woodford Double Oaked with a house allspice dram and barrel-aged cherry bitters. The Miso Honey Goldrush is clover honey fermented with miso, poured over Toki Japanese whisky.

The Lemon Tarragon Flip is finished with the Abbey Blonde from downstairs. It’s the one drink up here that uses the beer.

Take the stairs up.

Directions

A $26 Old-Fashioned comes sealed under candelilla wax. It’s espadín mezcal with corn cob and burnt orange oil. The house gin and tonic costs $10. It’s built on botanicals including lemongrass, linden, galangal, orris and cassia.

The classics include the Jungle Bird, the Martinez and the Rosita.

There’s a taproom downstairs and a kitchen that buys trout from Sunburst and meat from Hickory Nut Gap.

DJs rotate through the upstairs room. On Service Industry Sunday, people who work in bars and restaurants get a free meal.

Directions

Dessert drinks get their own section: the Banana Bread at Work, the Mamacita and the Sorbet & Sparkling. The Banana Bread is bourbon washed in brown butter, and the menu warns that it contains dairy.

For something stronger, order the Skyview, a clarified rye with a red wine float. There’s also a Mai-Tai made with miso caramel and orgeat, and the Smoky Mountain, an IPA floated over tequila, mezcal and lime.

Bargello, the hotel’s restaurant, is at the other end of the building. On Thursdays, $20 gets you a dirty martini, a Caesar salad and fries.

Directions

Order the Smoked Old Fashioned, made with Old Forester and demerara and smoked in the glass. The Cafe Boulevardier is rye with Amaro Averna and Kamora coffee liqueur. The Hot Guava Gimlet comes with chili and Tajín.

On a warm night, sit in the courtyard out back. It has iron furniture, lanterns and brick on every side. Some Thursdays and Fridays there’s live music out there.

Directions

The cocktail list is called Top Shelf, and some of its drinks are aged. One original rests for four months in a used bourbon cask before it’s served. You can also get a Manhattan made with Hibiki Harmony, a Japanese whisky, in place of rye.

From the Top Shelf originals, try the Sazerac Forte or the Fire Walk with Me.

Check who’s playing before you go.

Directions

Order the Root Daiquiri, an aged-rum daiquiri with dandelion and burdock root. The Vera McCurry is a dirty martini on blue cheese vodka and olives, both made in house. The Taco Tuesday is a tequila drink with al pastor-brined tomato and onion.

Furniture maker Parker Reid designed the room, with zinc counters and walnut tables. Tina Councell of Iron Maiden Studios did the ironwork.

On Wine Wednesdays, three pours on the mezzanine cost $10. Sit upstairs if there’s room.

Directions

Order something with sherry. There’s a Sherry Tonic, a Rebujito, and the Gota Fria, which is cold brew and rum under a PX sherry float.

Katie Button worked at elBulli, and Felix Meana at Café Atlántico. They opened Cúrate in 2011, inside a 1920s bus depot. In 2022 the James Beard Foundation gave it the award for Outstanding Hospitality, which is about how guests are treated.

Ask what’s on the seasonal list. That’s the part that changes.

Directions

Debbie Word and her daughter Danielle taught themselves to distill on a family still. They opened the bar in 2018.

Try the Fernet Daiquiri, made with Eda Rhyne’s Appalachian Fernet, or the Chemist Old Fashioned, made with the house whiskey. One house drink runs navy-strength gin through a celery shrub. Another pairs vodka with honeysuckle, orris root and a vegan foam.

Four absinthes are poured neat. There’s also an espresso bar and a loose-leaf tea list from Dobra Tea.

The bar has three floors. The roof is only partly covered and closes in bad weather, so go up when it’s nice.

Directions

The bartenders wash spirits in milk and in fat and make their own shrubs and syrups. They use the same methods on the classics, including the Negroni.

The most expensive drink is a $150 Cocktail for Two, made with barrel-aged Clase Azul, truffle honey and duck-fat-washed Bauchant.

Layla and Justin Neuroth had a whiskey bar in Santa Rosa for five years before opening Farmese in January 2025.

Ask the bartender which section to start with.

Directions