The Whiskey Ring

The Whiskey Ring has been a fixture of Cherokee Street since December 2013, when two veterans of the Off Broadway music venue opened a corner bar and put a hundred whiskeys behind it.

The name is a piece of St. Louis history rather than a flourish. The Whiskey Ring was the scandal that broke during Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency in the 1870s, when distillers conspired to defraud the federal government of liquor tax – and St. Louis was one of the cities at the centre of it. Naming a whiskey bar after a whiskey fraud in the city where the fraud happened is the kind of joke this street appreciates.

The selection is the reason to come: well over a hundred whiskeys, with an ever-growing list of bourbons, ryes and scotches alongside the more unusual bottles. The cocktail menu runs classic and seasonal in equal measure, made by people who take the drinks seriously without making a performance of it.

What keeps it a neighbourhood bar rather than a whiskey shrine is the room. It has the feel of a corner bar, the decor is particular to itself, and there is outdoor seating for the warmer months. Regulars treat it as their local; visitors are treated as if they might become regulars.

The Whiskey Ring stands at 2651 Cherokee Street, at the eastern end of the street among the restaurants – a good few blocks past the antique shops, and worth the walk.