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The Best Places to Drink in Portland ME

9 places ranked

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The best places to drink in Portland ME, according to the experts: Esquire, Punch, and Portland Press Herald have all weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. Room for Improvement comes out on top, and the good stuff runs deepest in Portland and Biddeford.

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Via Vecchia and Maps Bar hold the next two places. Portland Press Herald shows up on more of this list than any other guide, with James Beard Awards next.

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  • Cocktail Bars
  • Speakeasies
  • Tiki Bars
  • Wine Bars
  • Beer Bars
  • Dive Bars
  • Pubs
  • Gastropubs
  • Taverns
  • Izakayas

  1. Rank 1. Room for Improvement

    Cocktail Bar

    A cocktail bar on Portland's tourist-heavy Wharf Street that opened with a stated mission to make the block worth visiting. The drinks lean on reworked classics, with hot dogs and bar snacks to keep things honest. The $28 Flaming Scorpion Bowl arrives in a blaze of mild chaos, which tells you the room doesn't take itself too seriously. Punch named it one of the best new bars in the country, and Esquire flagged its espresso martini among the best in America.

    The awards

    +1 more awards at Room for Improvement
    Address
    41 Wharf St, Portland, ME · Portland
    Hours

    Open now, until 1 AM

    Tuesday 5 PM–1 AM

    Online
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  2. Rank 2. Via Vecchia

    The awards

    Address
    10 Dana St, Portland, ME · Portland
    Hours

    Open now, until 10 PM

    Tuesday 4 PM–10 PM

    Reserve
    Resy
    Online
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  3. Rank 3. Maps Bar

    The awards

    Address
    64 Market St, Portland, ME · Portland
    Hours

    Open now, until midnight

    Tuesday 4 PM–Midnight

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
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  4. Rank 4. Magnus on Water

    Cocktail Bar

    The awards

    Address
    12 Water St, Biddeford, ME · Biddeford
    Online
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  5. Rank 5. Cuties

    The awards

    Address
    46 Market St, Portland, ME · Portland
    Hours

    Open now, until 11 PM

    Tuesday 9 AM–11 PM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
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  6. Rank 5. The Jewel Box

    The awards

    +1 more awards at The Jewel Box
    Address
    644 Congress St, Portland, ME · Portland
    Hours

    Open now, until 1 AM

    Tuesday 6 PM–1 AM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
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  7. Rank 7. The Abbey

    Cocktail Bar

    The awards

    Address
    87 Maine St, Brunswick, ME · Brunswick
    Hours

    Closed today, opens Wed 8 AM

    Online
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  8. Rank 8. Papi

    Puerto Rican Cocktail Bar

    Mahogany double doors shipped from Puerto Rico anchor the entrance to this Puerto Rican cocktail bar in the Old Port, where salsa and merengue fill the room and the tiled bar is the obvious place to sit. The drinks lean inventive, the food is serious enough to linger over, and the whole thing has a regional Spirited Award to its name. Portland has seafood shacks covered; this is doing something else entirely.

    The awards

    +1 more awards at Papi
    Address
    18 Exchange St, Portland, ME · Portland
    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
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  9. Rank 9. Hunt & Alpine

    The awards

    Address
    75 Market St, Portland, ME · Portland
    Hours

    Open now, until 10 PM

    Tuesday 3 PM–10 PM

    Online
    WebsiteInstagram
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Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

    How we score →

    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      Four fifths of the score is the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin Key outweighs a listicle. The last fifth is where it is: the ranked places to eat and things to do around it, and how safe the country is. When you sort by what's nearby, distance from you changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. The places are 60% of it: the best of what's within reach, weighed by distance. The setting is the other 40%: how life goes in that country (how people rate their own lives, how long and how well they live, how safe they are) and what it's like right there (the air, and the weather). If the score looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.