Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is one of the oldest structures in the French Quarter — a crumbling brick-between-posts building from around 1772 that legend says was used as a front for the pirate Jean Lafitte's smuggling operation. Whether the pirate connection is true is debatable (historians argue about it endlessly), but the building is genuine French Colonial construction, and the bar inside is one of the most atmospheric drinking establishments in America.

The interior is lit almost entirely by candles, and the effect on a dark evening — shadows flickering across exposed brick walls, the glow of votives on the bar and tables, the general sense of drinking in a building that was old when the Louisiana Purchase happened — is more Gothic romance than sports bar. A pianist plays in the back room most evenings, and the music drifts through the building with the kind of lazy intensity that only candlelight and old walls can produce.

The bar sits on the quieter upper end of Bourbon Street, past the strip-club-and-karaoke zone that dominates the lower blocks, and it draws a mix of tourists who've read about it and locals who appreciate a drink in a building that hasn't been renovated into sterility. The purple voodoo daiquiris are the signature drink — not because they're good (they're extremely sweet), but because they're what you drink at Lafitte's, in the same way that beignets are what you eat at Café Du Monde. Some New Orleans traditions exist because of quality; others exist because of momentum. Both types are valid.