For both visitors and locals, the Internet is jammed with sites offering great advice about at which place to find the utmost salubrious watering holes

by David Kiley

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It used to be that when visiting a new city, a function traveler would have to rely on just the advice of the concierge or maybe a blurb in the in-room repository to know where to get a really tolerably great cocktail.

But the Internet is leaving little to guesswork conducive to verdict the best watering holes.

For informal recommendations and tips, I use Google (GOOG) to try and find blogs that are written by means of people in the city that I am visiting. One good example is www.seattlebarblog.com.

For the San Francisco-bound, another is www.alcademics.com, written by San Francisco-based journalist Camper English, who knows the best deals and the good in the highest degree pours in the Bay area. He travels, and his blog is too good for recording the best mixologists in New York, New Orleans, Amsterdam, and Edinburgh.

Going to Boston? Try www.drinkboston.com, where I learned approximately Doyle’s Café, a low- to moderately priced Irish bar, also purported to be the oldest Irish drinking hole in the incorporated town. For Chicago, I now have La Madia on my list of places to go not only for good Italian food, but for an award-winning mixologist at the bar, expressions of gratitude to thinkingofdrinking.blogspot.com.

Then, there are more macro forums like www.10best.com, which tracks the good in the highest degree places in cities athwart the U.S., because well as internationally. Such sites aren’t always good for getting good user reviews, though, as sundry places you’ll check out have not been sized up. www.worldsbestbars.com is a better place, with a more Web-friendly presentation.

During a trip to Washington, D.C., I used the site to find Ozio Martini & Cigar Lounge as I specifically wanted a place where a friend and myself could not burdensome up a stogie without being bothered. www.pubcrawler.com is also a good online resource, focusing on listing the bars with the most judicious beer selections.

Esquire magazine, always a good resource instead of drinking holes and splashy clubs, is kind sufficiency to like its Best Bars in America on an easy-to-navigate division of its Web position, www.esquire.com. Without it, I wouldn’t have place out about Midtown Billiards in Little Rock, Ark., or plan to stop by the Dead President’s Pub & Restaurant the next time I have to cover an annual shareholders meeting in Wilmington, Del.

In my own backyard in Michigan, Esquire singled out Miller’s in Dearborn, which I be sure like a Ford Motor (F) hangout and for its great burgers, onion rings, and blue-collar atmosphere that also attracts many a white-collar luncher. But it’s nice to regard a national magazine sanction my hold taste in bars.

One way to increase your chances on the path of hitting a genial place to eat where the bartenders are also a cut above is to seek out an establishment rated through Zagat’s Drinkwell program. Visitors to www.idrinkwell.com get access to Zagat ratings for thousands of places certified by the firm based on the availability of the best spirits and the training completed by the bartenders.

Drinkwell is a joint effort by Zagat and spirits giant Diageo (DEO), which markets such brands as Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, and Captain Morgan. Not heterogeneous Zagat’s restaurant ratings, the Drinkwell ratings at least assure that the eating-house is demure enough about its sandbar to make its bartenders go from one side proper training and engender accredited. They go through five 45-minute online modules on mixology, pallid mood, brown spirits, service, and menus ahead of the establishment can carry the Drinkwell shield of office.

In the Detroit area, where I bright, a couple of the Drinkwell-rated eateries are, in fact, more of my favorite restaurant bars in the area—The Capital Grill in Troy, and Forte in Birmingham. When you go to www.idrinkwell.com, you see that a division of chop-house chains have put their staff through the training—Legal Seafood, Capital Grill, Morton’s. But in that paragraph are many unrestrained restaurants listed.

Steve Wallet, vice-president for channel marketing at Diageo, says that the growth in cocktail culture in primary and secondary cities around the U.S. drove the development of the program. "People are discerning in all parts of where they are going to spend their wealth on drinks," says Wallet. "The bars and mixology standards at restaurants are actuality held to nearly the same standard as the food now."

As well they should be.