D.C. is a pretty great place to be if you love drinking, and it’s grown into an especially fantastic place for cocktail nerds. And while you’ll find some incredibly creative drinks popping up at places like barmini, 2 birds 1 stone, and the now-closed/soon-to-reopen Columbia Room, there’s something to be said about the classics. Think of these drinks—often invented during the Prohibition or earlier—as the grandfathers and grandmothers of the modern cocktail: We wouldn’t be where we are today without them. (And they just might have been something your grandparents drank back in the day.) To get a literal taste of history, we recommend starting your drinking education at one of these ten bars below.

Photo by Cristina Guidi.

BAR CHARLEY: Bar Charley has a little bit of everything to please the cocktail connoisseur, though none more so than the whiskey lover. The menu opens strong with fifteen different riffs on the Manhattan, including some classics in their own right like the Vieux Carre and Boulvardier. Drinkers will also find solid takes on the Old Fashioned, Jack Rose, tiki standbys like the Suffering Bastard, and some wacky twists on the familiar, like the Pimm’s Up, Ho’s Down. And, unlike some of the other bars on this list, Bar Charley offers a selection of their classic cocktails at the wallet-friendly price of $6 during happy hour.

Bar Charley is located at 1825 18th Street NW.

BOURBON STEAK LOUNGE: If a bar’s menu stretches over 20 pages, there’s a good chance classic cocktails make an appearance. This is definitely the case at Bourbon Steak’s lounge bar, where bartenders pour meticulous effort into both the classic and original drinks filling the multi-page cocktail list. It’s hard to go wrong with one of their barrel-aged Manhattans, but curious drinkers can go deep in search of lesser known historical beverages like a sloe gin fizz or the Planter’s Punch, whose recipe was first published in 1878.

Bourbon Steak is located at 2800 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

CHURCH AND STATE: Church and State stays very much on-theme, from the decor (yes, I do want to get drunk in a church pew) to the “Bill of Rights” emblazoned on the menu. The drinks are no exception, focusing exclusively on American creations like the Prohibition-era Tom Collins and Gin Rickey, as well as a riff on the Sazerac, the official drink of New Orleans. Like the cocktails, the ingredients are usually American as well, down to the small-batch distilled whiskies and vodkas.

Church and State is located at 1236 H NE.

Photo courtesy of Copycat Co.’s Facebook page.

COPYCAT CO: If you want a drinkable primer in cocktail history, head straight to Copycat Co. The vast menu, artfully presented across a series of sliding chalkboards, is organized by drink family, which helps patrons understand how different libations relate to one another. Annotations also provide helpful explanations—for instance, a mule is a spirit mixed with ginger beer, while a buck is a spirit mixed with ginger ale. Guests are encouraged to take a DIY approach and push their boundaries a bit by ordering something familiar (an Old Fashioned, for instance) with a non-traditional liquor. Copycat also pays tribute to the lost art of the egg white-topped drink, and they’ll even teach you the difference between a sour and a fizz.

Copycat Co. is located at 1110 H St NE.

DENSON LIQUOR BAR: At this point the term “speakeasy” is about as maligned as cupcakes, froyo, and fast casual. But it’s hard to find a better word to describe Denson Liquor Bar, a barely-marked subterranean tavern that looks like it walked off the set of Boardwalk Empire. It would be criminal to slide anything too ahistorical across that stunning Art Deco bar; thankfully the drink selection hews closely to the era, with historical nods like the Scofflaw, Vieux Carre, Emerson, and cryptically-named Japanese Cocktail.

Denson Liquor Bar is located at 600 F St NW.

Photo by Nathan Wilkinson.

FIOLA: Fiola has a classic cocktail menu that strongly represents drinks that stray from the well-beaten Martini and Manhattan path. Their Vieux Carre is classic to a T; with Willet rye and Remey Martin VSOP and Dolin sweet vermouth, it is New Orleans cocktail par excellence. Honorable mention goes to their Bitter New Yorker, which substitutes out all that sweet grenadine and sour lemon juice for some interesting bitters and Amari. It’s closer to a Negroni than the original citrus “up” drink. Basil Hayden’s Bourbon is at the heart of this cocktail, but Averna, Campari, and chocolate bitters bring it home as a unique take on a classic.—Nathan Wilkinson

Fiola is located at 601 Pennsylvania Ave NW.

MOCKINGBIRD HILL: Sherry has OG status when it comes to U.S. drinking. It was one of the first alcoholic drinks on the continent and reached heights of popularity in the 19th century. Mockingbird Hill is determined to re-popularize sherry, which is wine fortified with additional alcohol, through flights, classes, and familiar cocktails with a sherry twist (see: the Shazerac). One cocktail they’re known for is the Adonis: Amontillado sherry, Cocchi Vermouth de Torino, and bitters with an orange peel garnish. Enjoy it on one of the last few warm days of the year, along with some thinly sliced salty meat. —Josh Kramer

Mockingbird Hill is located at 1843 7th St NW.

ROUND ROBIN BAR: As the reported birthplace of the famed mint julep in the 1800s, we would be remiss to leave out the Round Robin Bar in the Willard Intercontinental hotel. Yes, you’ll pay $15 for the privilege of drinking a piece of history, but the old school Washington atmosphere—complete with wood paneling, clubby leather chairs, and old dudes in suits—is hard to beat. If juleps aren’t your thing, channel the past with one of their rum swizzles or a French 75.

The Round Robin Bar is located at 1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW.

The Willard Hotel’s Mint Juleps (Courtesy of the Willard)

SOUTHERN EFFICIENCY: The South has a rich drinking culture, and there’s no better place to experience it than at Derek Brown’s send-up to all things below the Mason Dixon line. This summer Southern Efficiency embraced the mint julep hard, offering four different renditions draft. But as the seasons change, so too do the cocktails. Instead look for the more autumnal Vieux Carre on the menu or get cozy with an always-in-season Old Fashioned.

Southern Efficiency is located at 1841 7th St NW.

WISDOM: Many historical cocktails use whiskey as a base, but what if brown water isn’t your jam? Enter the gin martini, a specialty of the house at Wisdom. The bar boasts an extensive gin list, and they even run a gin club whose expressed goal is to “convert vodka drinkers into gin drinkers one drink at a time.” The bartenders can help with gin recommendations (so many botanicals, so little time) and will carefully craft you a martini that falls anywhere between bone dry to “Old Dirty Bastard” (extra olive juice).

Wisdom is located at 1432 Pennsylvania Ave SE.