As part of a three-country spin though Europe in the waning days of 2014, Mrs. Wonk and I thoroughly enjoyed four (chilly) nights in Prague. Although the London cocktail bars were the big game on this trip, I’d deduced beforehand that Prague has a handful of cocktails bars that looked like good candidates to investigate. Through careful planning we made it to all of them plus one more that came highly recommended. All told, we visited these bars (click individual links for my notes on each bar):
- Black Angel’s
- Hemingway Bar
- Anonymous Bar
- Bugsy’s
- Tretter’s
- BONVIVANT’s Cocktail Tapas Cafe
- Public Interest
Prague has been infested by the “Bros on holiday” ethos. You’ll find any number of signs for strip clubs (200 models a night!), cheap beer bars, and nightclubs serving (I’m sure) only the finest quality vodka drinks. Do not despair! Good craft cocktail bars exist.
Prague is undoubtedly a beer town, and seriously, a decent beer can cost less than bottled water. There are quite a few microbreweries that have popped up in restaurants, and we visited several. Despite my focus on cocktails, I still managed to consume more beer in four days there than I did the entire rest of the year.
Coming from Seattle where I don’t blink at a $12 cocktail, I found Prague insanely inexpensive. Several times Mrs. Wonk and I tabbed out and giggled at the total. Typically drinks at high-end bars are around 160 Czech Koruna, or $6.75 US, roughly half what I’m used to, and the drinks were every bit as good.
The best known Czech native spirit is Becherovka, an herbal bitter liqueur similar to Jägermeister and Zwack. It’s readily available here in the US, and I’ve written favorably about it previously, so it was nice to see it featured in several cocktails including a Mai Tai at Black Angel’s.
All types and brands of spirits were readily available in Prague, a marked contrast to some other world-class cities we’ve visited, such as Buenos Aires. Several establishments had extensive back bars in the 300+ bottle range. As a rum aficionado, I know rum often gets short shrift in many bars – a couple of bottles of Bacardi and some Captain Morgan perhaps? However, in Prague rum seems to have an enthusiastic following, and I noted many bottles that would only be familiar to someone with a passion for rum. I took full advantage of the opportunity to consume good Cuban rum whenever possible. (With the recent changes in US-Cuban relations, the prospect of drinking Cuban rum on our home soil is getting closer, but not quite here. That said, it remains a novelty when overseas.)
One interesting thing we noticed was the profusion of Blue Blazer-type cocktails. The Blue Blazer is a labor-intensive cocktail from the 1860s, famous for its preparation that involves repeatedly pouring flaming high proof spirits in long, blue-tinged arcs between metal cups. Nearly every bar we visited in Prague has one on the menu—and they were ordered at each place and crafted enthusiastically. Most of the bars took to the theatrical aspect and dimmed the lights to show off the pyrotechnics. Which of course meant a new round of orders, and more blue flames.
Central Prague is very walkable. All of the bars we visited were all within a ten minute walk of the Old Town square, making it easy to pop between them without worrying about transportation.
Some bars allow smoking. However, in most of the bars we visited, the ventilation did a respectable job of keeping the smoke to a tolerable level. Your mileage may vary.
Prague is a fantastic city, rich in history and visually stunning – highly recommended. You can’t walk ten feet without tripping over something older than the Mayflower. After a long day of touring, enjoying great cocktails at bargain prices is a perfect way to unwind.
