I remember when you couldn’t get a decent Old Fashioned or a martini anywhere in Las Vegas. Most of the town was all about vodka sodas and Jack & Coke; you were there to quickly settle into something between buzzed and drunk. But I’m starting to think
the Vegas cocktail scene is more exciting than even Los Angeles’s.
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One could argue that places like Herbs & Rye, Downtown Cocktail Room, and Velveteen Rabbit started the most recent wave, adopting the late aughts’ speakeasy-revival drinks and classic cocktails made with small-batch spirits. Larger downtown and Strip venues caught on with fresh juices and inventive drinks, but flavors still hewed sweet to cater to a wider audience. The Cosmopolitan’s Chandelier Bar melded glamour with intentional drinks, while north of the Strip, Commonwealth pulled off a haunted Gothic-speakeasy design with Arts District cool. (Commonwealth’s 16-seat bar-within-a-bar Laundry Room offered an even higher level of drink-craft.)
Over the next decade, bars off the Strip were able to bend more rules and maintain higher standards. In 2018, Jammyland fused creative rum cocktails in a reggae-inspired room from two former LA bartenders Allan Katz and Danielle Crouch; by early 2024, intimate Japanese whiskey bar Bar Ginza felt plucked out of a Tokyo luxury hotel; and in February 2025, the Doberman Drawing Room, a members-only bar (with some public reservations) from Vegas cocktail legend Juyoung Kang pushed boundaries with a Thai-inflected tom kha fizz and 24-hour Japanese kefir milk-washed gin punch. Now Nocturno brings Mexico City’s celebrated cocktail culture, while Viking Mike’s Alpine Yurt bar serves Scandinavian drinks against a wood-and-stone paneled Nordic backdrop that couldn’t feel farther from the Nevada desert.
Other Strip resorts have jumped on the trend, often focusing on a theme. The Art Deco-infused Rosina at the Venetian opened in 2017; Collins at the Fontainebleau, honing in on highballs, in late 2023. The impeccable views came back into view at Hard Shake at the Waldorf Astoria in March 2025. There’s even the brand-new Japanese listening bar-style Vinyl Room at Mandalay Bay. The annual Drink, a cocktail festival hosted by MGM Resorts in late September, has become Vegas’s own version of the popular Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.
Recently, I’ve been chronicling my adventures through some of the newer cocktail destinations around Las Vegas to chart how far things have come — even as we’re seeing a general slowdown in LA’s own bar development. These two highlights, one off-Strip and another in the heart of the Strip, are shining examples of Vegas’s ascendant cocktail supremacy.
Class Cocktails & Vermuteria
This one really surprised me when I stopped by in late July. Your driver might not know where to drop you off at the dark, almost abandoned strip mall location about 15 minutes from the Strip, but that means you’re at the right place. A small, ornate door with the word “Class” opens onto a fantastical Mad Men-esque interior; it’s dim enough that your eyes will take a minute to adjust. A host will offer a shot of the day’s vermouth — Slovakia-born owner and bar veteran Jozef Letasi is obsessed with vermouth — before you settle onto a lounge seat or barstool.
The huge menu lists over 100 options on a printed newspaper broadsheet, imparting some “old man” gravitas as you spread it across the dimly lit bar. There are a dozen ways to get a martini (dirty, filthy, in and out, extra dry, perfect). Looking for something lower in ABV, I ordered a sherry cobbler, which was served not with the typical pebble ice but clear medium cubes, in a tall Collins glass with a thick glass straw. A mezcal Old Fashioned came garnished with satisfyingly chewy beef jerky; a smoke gun gave both liquid and meat a nice smoky finish.
There’s a real purity and attention to detail here that I wouldn’t have foreseen in Vegas even a decade ago. And the drinks aren’t just spot-on and precisely crafted — they are delightful and quaffable to the point where you’re not sure how it’s already last call (which occurs here at precisely 1:11 a.m.). The bar just opened in early June. I imagine it will soon be moving up the North America’s 50 Best Bars ranking, because it’s really special.
The Vault
I chuckled hearing the name of this speakeasy semi-hidden on the Bellagio casino floor, in the space where the chip-and-cash cage used to be: “The Vault” is a central plot point in Ocean’s Eleven. The term “ritzy” doesn’t begin to describe this place — though drinks start at $30 apiece, making it at least within the realm of attainable in Las Vegas terms. Opened in 2023, the bar features a striking chandelier that casts its glow on mirrored surfaces and dark marble that give the room the feeling of a James Bond villain’s lair. The free snacks are remarkable: spicy olives you poke at with metal pins, cheffed-up Cheez-Its, shelled pistachios covered in a Tajín-like seasoning. The on-menu snacks are not cheap, but the $42 plate of potato “croissants” topped with caviar is worthy of your Instagram stories.
When it comes to drinks, expect something between outlandish and otherworldly: a $55 margarita with prickly pear, ginger, cardamom soda, and a literal bouquet of garnishes in a cut crystal highball glass, for example. The back section of the menu features drinks made with vintage spirits, the endgame of committed cocktailians dead set on tasting drinks as Don the Beachcomber himself might have. There’s a Vesper that costs $100 using a 100-year-old gin. I ordered a mai tai made with vintage rum, topped with a rum-soaked sugar cube set aflame at the table. I appreciated its lime-forward flavor with a pleasant balance between the rums and syrups.
Toward the end, the bartender regaled us with a special finish: a gallon-size bottle of Japanese Suntory whiskey from the 1960s (somewhere out there, Bill Murray is cracking a grin) presented in a carved wooden pouring holster. Each guest received a half-ounce — mellow, smooth, and characteristically relaxing.
A bit woozy after all the rum and whiskey, I stepped out onto the casino floor, played a $100 hand of blackjack, and summarily lost after my 20 was trounced by the dealer’s five-card 21. On the long walk to the taxi stand, I realized Vegas is as much a serious cocktail mecca as it is an entertaining one.
