Detroit's Nancy Whiskey Among America’s Most Authentic Dive Bars

DETROIT, MI — If you’re looking for craft cocktails, $20 Manhattans and frou-frou drinks, the Nancy Whiskey bar in Detroit isn’t your kind of place. But if you’re looking for a down and dirty (not in the unsanitary sense of the word) Irish neighborhood pub, the Corktown icon is the place to be. The Washington Post agrees, too, naming it one of America’s eight greatest dive bars.

Besides an utter lack of wallet-socking cocktails, the dive bars had to have something else to make the list — history. Nancy Whiskey has plenty of that. Teamsters Union boss Jimmy Hoffa drank there, conducting business deals in a private phone booth by the door before his mysterious disappearance that has captivated America’s imagination since 1975. There’s even a picture — one of many on the walls — of former owner Nancy McNiven-Glenn posing with a Tommy gun during the filming of “Hoffa.”

Beat cops, firefighters and members of the Detroit Tigers baseball team, including those who remember the old Tiger Stadium when it was still named the Briggs Stadium, have all haunted the famous dive bar at one time or another.

The bartenders have been slinging drinks at Nancy Whiskey, known as “Detroit’s oldest party,” since 1902, and it operated as a speakeasy during Prohibition, roaring back when the 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933. The bar declined with Detroit, but now that the Motor City is on the rise again, so Nancy Whiskey.

“All the young people are moving back, buying up all the houses, redoing them,” bartender Sheryl Grogan told The Post. “Our night business has changed. It’s young professionals, hipsters — just a big difference. We sell more craft beer now.”

But there are no craft cocktails. The signature drink is Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey, and first-time visitors get a complimentary shot. Guinness beer is on tap.

The old and new crowds meld, their common denominator a thirst for cheap beer. “Everybody loves cheap beer,” Grogan said.

The bar nearly disappeared in a 2009 electrical fire, but the community rallied together to restore it. One of the regulars, a high school wood-shop teacher, built the bar counter, and the daughter of another painted the pressed tin ceiling of the establishment, which is older than its liquor license, having originally opened as a general store in 1898.

The other mentions on the The Washington Post’s Most Authentic Dive Bars in America list are:

• Double Down Saloon, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Subway Inn, New York City, New York
• The Frolic Room, Hollywood, California
• Little Longhorn Saloon, Austin, Texas
• Lone Star Saloon, Houston, Texas
• Candlelight Lounge, New Orleans, Louisiana
• Bob and Barbara’s, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Photo via Google Earth