To compile and rank the nation’s best cocktail bars for that October issue, GQ traveled over 30,000 miles, visited twenty-one cities and 102 bars, and drank more than 400 cocktails, prior to finally selecting Seattle’s Zig Zag Cafe as the number one bar on the checklist. At Zig Zag Cafe, “patrons come for the easy conversation and also the drink-all-day coziness. Above all, though, they arrive for that cocktails of Murray Stenson.

The man is effortlessly talented, a bartender superhero. Actually, he may be the country’s greatest,” writes Kevin Sintumuang. “Each drink Murray pours is really a mini-revelation, an introduction to rare spirits and a bold use of common ones.” Here is GQ’s complete checklist of the very best cocktail pubs in America:

1: Zig Zag Cafe – Seattle
2: Angel’s Share – New York
3: The Violet Hour – Chicago
4: Clover Club – Brooklyn
5: The Alembic – San Francisco
6: Death & Co – New York
7: PDT – New York
8: PX – Alexandria, VA
9: Comstock Saloon – San Francisco
10: Holeman & Finch – Atlanta
11: Tiki-ti – Los Angeles
12: The Patterson House – Nashville
13: Eastern Standard – Boston
14: Rickhouse – San Francisco
15: Anvil – Houston
16: Arnaud’s French 75 – New Orleans
17: Elixir – San Francisco
18: Columbia Room – Washington, D.C.
19: Cole’s – Los Angeles
20: The Whistler – Chicago
21: Drink – Boston
22: Pegu Club – New York
23: The Edison – Los Angeles
24: The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. – Philadelphia
25: Needle and Thread – Seattle