For the fifth year in a row, New Orleans residents voted Monteleone Carousel Bar in the historic, 125-year-old Hotel Monteleone as the “Best Hotel Bar” in the city according to the “Best of New Orleans 2011” reader’s poll conducted annually by Gambit Weekly, a weekly entertainment newspaper in New Orleans. This year, almost 3,300 ballots were cast by Gambit readers online and through the mail.

This story was first featured in the Summer issue in 2010 and is worth a ReMix. There’s nothing quite like having a cocktail in a historic bar. It makes your mind wonder about who has visited this same place in the past. If you happen to be in Babcock & Story Bar in the Hotel Del Coronado, which opened in 1888, the imagination can conjure up the power brokers of the early 1900s deciding the fate of the great West over cocktails at the massive handmade mahogany bar; or the Navy pilots-in-training during World War II enjoying the high life before going off to war.