Black Penny

A dim, brick-walled dive in Tremé that takes brown spirits far more seriously than its no-frills setting lets on — the bottle list is deep and genuinely good, the kind of selection you would expect from a dedicated whiskey bar rather than a neighborhood haunt a short walk from the Quarter. It is the contrast that makes it: order a whiskey neat in a room with no pretension to match the pour, late in the evening when you want something serious without the ceremony. A few blocks off the tourist track, it feels like another world entirely.