Secret sips: A Las Vegas speakeasy guide
What’s harder to believe?
A.) That when it came to booze, Las Vegas was once as dry as the desert just outside its doors?
Or
B.) That an outlaw town from birth would just go ahead and fully comply with teetotaling, early 20th century prohibition laws?
This is Sin City — and there’s your answer.
Sure, Nevadans may have voted for a ballot measure banning alcohol sales in 1918, the year before the 18th Amendment passed, doing the same nationally.
But this didn’t end the partying in a city where the partying never ends.
Instead, boozing went underground in speakeasies that sprang up across the city, creating a hidden network of good times before Prohibition officially ended with the passage of the 21st Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933.
Though Prohibition became a thing of the past, Vegas speakeasy culture continues to thrive.
In honor of Repeal Day, here’s a guide to the city’s booming modern-day speakeasy scene.
Off Strip
Something new
Dark Arts at the Grey Witch, 722 W. Sunset Road, Henderson
Duck your head beneath the two peacocks mounted above the mantel, brave the (faux) flames and enter through the fireplace.
The glowing log and burning embers that you squeeze by may be artificial, but the smoke inside Dark Arts is real: Vegas’ newest speakeasy doubles as a world-class pipe and tobacco shop with the most expansive assortment in the city.
“I have been a pipe smoker most of my life; it’s a dying art,” notes owner Russ Gardner, surveying his wares. “You can’t get any of this stuff anywhere else in town.”
Speaking of dying, like the Grey Witch it’s housed in, Dark Arts is alive with dead things: menageries of rib and scapular bones dangle from the ceiling like macabre nursery mobiles; a vampire hunter’s tool kit is mounted on the rear wall; “The Devil Wants You!” reads a decades-old framed advertisement for Thee Satanic Church in Oak Park, Illinois.
The cocktails — or potions and elixirs, as they’re called on the menu — are similarly spooky, from the Pagan Ritual (made of bacon fat-washed bourbon and rye) to the gin-infused Dragon Glass.
“We want to do something that people will talk about,” Gardner explains, his words extending to both the living and the dead.
Old favorite
The Laundry Room at Commonwealth, 525 S. Sixth St.
Keep your hands to yourself, Casanova: There’s no PDA allowed in The Laundry Room.
You’ve got to keep it classy here — literally, the menu lists house rules prohibiting loud talking, excessive kissy face, phone calls, brawling and other uncouth behavior — with this elegant, throwback nightspot leading by example for over a decade now.
The OG downtown speakeasy, this is the longest-running cocktail lounge of its kind in the area, its longevity speaking to the enduring appeal of some “crisply pressed carousing” and “neatly folded opulence.”
Tucked off a hallway at the Commonwealth and built into the original bones of a Bugsy Siegel-era laundry room, it’s a softly lit sanctuary from the bustling Fremont East Arts District outside, its old-time vibe enhanced by antiquities like a vintage absinthe water decanter, ornamental teaspoon rack and an upright piano nestled into a corner of the cozy, 350-square-foot room, where the number of guests is limited to 22.
The cocktails range from traditional classics to the playfully inventive (made with agave spirits, the “Chili-Cillin” is described as tasting “like Penicillin with a hint of cilantro.”)
Time to take your medicine …
A cool spot
Seven: 45, 1531 S. Commerce St.
The tone is set in the opening hallway, where portraits of Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and other R&B and hip-hop greats peer from the walls as you enter this hidden den of sound.
“It’s all about the music,” owner DeAira Williams explains, standing before a library of vinyl records stacked to the ceiling, the vast majority of which belonged to her grandmother.
Underscoring Williams’ point, guests are forbidden from speaking louder than the tunes playing on the pair of glowing, audiophile-delighting McIntosh turntables or from milling about the room.
Here, you take a seat and, in turn, get taken by the hi-fi sounds that fill this sleekly designed lounge inspired by Japan’s listening bars.
“The space functions as an art installation masquerading as a bar,” Williams notes.
Every evening, a different album is featured — tonight’s selection is Naomi Sharon’s bewitching “Obsidian” — to complement craft cocktails that have a musical bent in some instances (The Sade-indebted Smooth Operator, infused with Uncle Nearest 1856 premium whiskey, which honors the world’s first-known African American master distiller, Nearest Green) and a menu of small bites handmade by Williams’ mother (try Mama Dee’s Salmon Spread).
A password is required for entry — it’s updated daily on the venue’s Instagram page (@seven45lv). Say it at the door, then lower your voice and let the music do the talking.
Other notable off-Strip speakeasies
The Underground at the Mob Museum, 300 Stewart Ave.
Mas Por Favor, 3879 Spring Mountain Road
Craft Creamery Speakeasy, 1 E. Charleston Blvd.
Capo’s Restaurant and Speakeasy, 5675 W. Sahara Ave.
Strip
Something new
Caspian’s Rock & Roe at Caesars Place
“You guys ready to rock … very softly?”
That’s a rhetorical question around these parts, but it’s just been posed nonetheless by the frontman for Vegas’ Radical West, one of the house bands at this nautically themed, live music speakeasy’s “Sailing Away” yacht rock night every Thursday.
Captain’s hat on — staffers hand them out to various guests — it’s time for some caviar paired with a side of Pringles, best washed down with a Negroni bobbing with caviar-stuffed olives as a buttery-smooth cover of Toto’s “Africa” gets the dance floor full.
How to describe the vibe here?
It’s kind of like a rich mermaid’s bachelorette pad, lustrous as an oyster’s pearl, the bar illuminated by conch-shell-shaped lamps and backed by a wall-length mural of one of the mythical sea creatures, her hair flowing like the tunes from the stage.
To get here, find the large portrait of a sea captain at Caspian’s Cocktails & Caviar, which doubles as a door.
Then it’s time to drop anchor for a spell.
Old favorites
Ski Lodge, Barbershop Cuts & Cocktails and Ghost Donkey at The Cosmopolitan
It always feels like winter at the Ski Lodge, a mountain cabin-themed hangout hidden behind an unmarked door near the super-freaky Italian restaurant Superfrico, with a picture window overlooking a snow-laden forest and a crackling fire that blazes in perpetuity.
The always raucous room gets even rowdier this time of year with their amps-to-11 Heavy Metal Holidays theme and seasonal cocktails like the mezcal-based Thrash the Halls and the worth-ordering-for-the-name-alone Pour Some Gravy on Me, Sugarplum.
Also, if you and a trio of friends have never slammed a shot of tequila embedded in an actual ski, order a Shotski, posthaste.
The Ski Lodge is one of three venues that have made The Cosmopolitan a speakeasy hotbed.
There’s also Ghost Donkey, a fiesta-in-waiting hidden behind a door adorned with the venue’s namesake animal in the back of the Block 16 Urban Food Hall.
The luminous room, with lights dangling from the ceiling amid ceramic equine statues, boasts a voluminous tequila and mezcal selection to pair with gourmet nachos.
To get well-groomed and well-lubed in one spot, hit the Barbershop Cuts & Cocktails, where a full-service, upscale men’s salon opens to a rock ’n’ roll speakeasy accessible via a nondescript janitor’s door.
Like the Ski Lodge, things get loud in here, with live music nightly in an always-bustling, high-energy setting festooned with leather couches, gleaming chandeliers and antique doors on the ceiling.
To keep the music vibe going, try a Six String Sling, made with Suntory Toki whisky and Drambuie, and get here early, as you never know who might drop by (Machine Gun Kelly, Rod Stewart, Bruno Mars, Anderson.Paak, Zac Brown and Dave Matthews are but a few of the big names who’ve hit the stage for surprise guest appearances.)
A cool spot
Here Kitty Kitty Vice Den at Resorts World
The kimono-clad cat knocking back a bottle of sake knows what’s up.
A drawing of the tipsy kitty adorns the menu here, next to another smiling, revelrous feline who urges us to “enter a hidden world of sin.”
Invitation accepted.
Visitors enter the Here Kitty Kitty Vice Den through a shelving unit in the back of the Fuhu Cha Chaan Teng restaurant in Resorts World’s food hall, Famous Foods Street Eats.
Once inside, you’re immersed in a Far East-themed fantasia brightened by multicolored lanterns, neon tigers and silk umbrellas on the ceiling, lending the room a chic outdoor market vibe.
The whiskey list is extensive, with a dozen Japanese varieties alone, as well as a variety of Hennessy-based cocktails, a house specialty.
Meow.
Other notable Strip speakeasies
1923 Prohibition Bar at The Venetian and Mandalay Bay
The Vault at Bellagio
Easy’s Cocktail Lounge at Aria
The Lock at Cabinet of Curiosities at the Horseshoe
The Count Room at the Flamingo
On the Record at Park MGM
Chez Bippy at the MGM Grand
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.
