A Room With a Brew

Menger Bar, Menger Hotel, San Antonio

If anyone deserves a drink, it’s the traveler. Which is why the hotel bar is such an important amenity. It’s the place where, weary from her journey, a wandering soul marks the end of her drive/flight/walk from the office and toasts her impending vacation/sabbatical/happy hour. At a hotel bar anything can happen. You might wind up in conversation with someone you don’t know, someone from another town, another state, another world. 

There are many good hotel bars in Texas, starting with one of the oldest. The Menger Bar, next to the Alamo, was created by drinkers for drinkers. Its proprietors, William and Mary Menger, ran such a successful brewery that, in 1859, they decided to open a place for their visitors to pass out—er, stay overnight. In 1887 a replica of the House of Lords pub was installed, complete with a solid cherry bar, French beveled mirrors, and polished brass spittoons. Here Teddy Roosevelt famously rustled up volunteer cavalrymen, or at least drank with them. The stuffed bull moose on the wall has seen several lifetimes’ worth of cattle-deal handshakes, dignitaries, and first-time visitors snapping photos from the balcony and reverentially perusing the Rough Riders uniforms and weaponry on display. (Really-old-timers are often spotted too: the ghost sightings are as numerous as the longnecks are cold.) 
204 Alamo Plaza, 210-223-4361, mengerhotel.com

Driskill Bar, Driskill Hotel, Austin

When a newly minted oil tycoon draws up plans for the mega-ranch of his dreams, this is the bar he wants to replicate, right down to the pistol lamps and cowhide stools. The Driskill Bar, like the 1886 hotel housing it, is plenty fancy but also as cozy as your broken-in boots. Sunk into leather club chairs and drinking gingery Batinis around the glass-topped piano, the only-in-Austin mix of musicians, lawmakers, and technocrats certainly seems at home.
604 Brazos, 512-439-1234, driskillhotel.com