LatestBarsPeopleCocktailsAwardsBrandsEventsBar DirectoryList Your Bar

The 6 Best Bars in Birmingham, AL

Birmingham earned its nickname, the Magic City, from fast industrial growth, and today its bars run from gin joints to tiki rooms, with Alabama produce on the menus. The best bars in Birmingham, Alabama sit downtown and in the loft district, with a few more in Parkside and Forest Park. The Collins Bar, the city's first dedicated cocktail bar since 2013, has no menu: bartenders build each drink to order beneath a ceiling of paper airplanes. Pilcrow Cocktail Cellar hides in an 1881 cellar beneath Founders Station, marked by a red neon pilcrow, while Adiós brings the ingredients, music and art of Mexico City downtown and keeps a Día de los Muertos ofrenda all year. Bygones mixes local strawberries and Shelby County pine cones into its drinks, and Juniper, in Forest Park, is a gin bar with a garden courtyard and a Gin Tonica list. In Parkside, Tucana Tiki Bar pours rum drinks among the foliage. Bygones takes reservations by text, and Juniper books a few tables each night by phone. These are the six we would start with.

Browse every Birmingham barBest cocktail bars in Birmingham
  1. Adiós
    Cocktail Bar

    Adiós

    ADIÕS opened in downtown Birmingham in November 2022, founded by José Medina Camacho and Jesús Méndez, both born in Mexico and raised in northern Alabama, as a bar of classic cocktails remade with Mexican-grown spirits and ingredients. The room draws on the music and art of Mexico City, with tropical plants, antique chapel stained glass, Oaxacan prints and a year-round Día de los Muertos ofrenda.

    2218 1st Ave N, Ste 100, Birmingham, AL 35203Sun-Thu 4pm-12am; Fri-Sat 4pm-2am
    Full profile
  2. Bygones Cocktail Bar
    Cocktail Bar

    Bygones Cocktail Bar

    Bygones calls itself a classy cocktail joint on 22nd Street South, and its summer menu is built on Alabama produce and house bitters, a Cardinal in a Pine Tree of white rum, Chilton County strawberries and young pine cones, an espresso martini with Chilton peaches and Eastaboga honey, and a Caribbean Carrot Negroni on three rums. Reservations are by text, and several drinks come in alcohol-free versions.

    210 22nd St S, Birmingham, AL 35233Daily from 3pm
    Full profile
  3. Juniper
    Cocktail Bar

    Juniper

    Juniper describes itself as a cozy and elegant cocktail bar and restaurant in the Forest Park historic district, with a lush garden courtyard and a botanical interior modeled on the ornate gin palaces of the Victorian era. Its line is let the fun be gin: the list is gin-focused but the inventive cocktail menu ranges wider, and the bar calls itself your neighborhood bar, reimagined, with dinner, brunch and a Sunday supper alongside.

    3811 Clairmont Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35222
    Full profile
  4. Pilcrow Cocktail Cellar
    Speakeasy

    Pilcrow Cocktail Cellar

    Pilcrow Cocktail Cellar is hidden beneath Founders Station in a historic 1881 cellar, its entrance in an alley between two restaurants, marked, as the bar says, by a red sign. It describes itself as Birmingham's favorite hidden underground bar, craft cocktails with friendly service in an intimate room, open from four on most days and until two on Friday and Saturday.

    2015 1st Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35203Mon 5pm-12am, Tue-Thu 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 4pm-2am
    Full profile
  5. The Collins Bar
    Cocktail Bar

    The Collins Bar

    The Collins Bar does not use a menu. Every drink is made custom by the bartenders, so, as the bar puts it, they are as unique as you are; guests who need a starting point pick their preferences from a card and hand it across. It bills itself as Birmingham's finest cocktail bar, on Second Avenue North, open from four until midnight on weeknights and until two on Friday and Saturday.

    2125 2nd Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35203Mon-Thu 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 4pm-2am
    Full profile
  1. Tucana Tiki Bar
    Tiki Bar

    Tucana Tiki Bar

    Tucana takes its name from the southern constellation that greets sailors crossing the Equator, and the bar says it welcomes you to another world in the same way, distinctive drinks and colorful decor as refuge under the southern skies. The menu changes with the seasons, happy hour runs from four to seven Monday to Thursday, and the room on First Avenue South opens at four every day.

    1143 1st Avenue South, Suite 101, Birmingham, AL 35233Sun-Thu 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 4pm-1am
    Full profile

Best bars in nearby cities

Explore the whole Birmingham scene

These 6 are the starting point. The full BarMagazine directory covers every listed bar in Birmingham, with a map, filters by bar type, and new openings as we verify them.

All 6 bars in Birmingham

Best bars in other cities

2,600+ bars294 cities
Bar Directory