Drinking is second only to music when it comes to Nashville’s main attractions and while there are many places to do it, if it’s your first time to Music City, it’s nearly required that make a few stops on Broadway.
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Broadway is lined with multi-tiered bars that double as music venues—many of which are catered to some of Nashville’s biggest stars. Everyone from Alan Jackson to Florida Georiga Line has a themed bar on Broadway for fans to visit, with Eric Church, Garth Brooks, and Luke Combs adding their name to the list of upcoming establishments. While you’re there, it only makes sense to drink like your favorite stars, too. Below, find six of the best artist-inspired bars on Broadway along with said artists’ drink of choice.
1. AJ’s Good Time Bar
Drink of Choice: Jack Daniels
Alan Jackson’s career got immortalized on Broadway in 2016 with AJ’s Good Time Bar. Like Jackson, the bar keeps with the classic country spirit Nashville was founded on. The building has been used for many things throughout the years – a civil war hospital, a used record store, and the home of Bullet Records to name a few. Today, the venue stands only to give those visiting Nashville all the “right conditions for a good time.”
There are many ways you could go about having a good time at AJ’s but, if you want to do it Jackson style, you’ve got to get yourself some Jack Daniels. “I’ve had them all, but I’ve always kind of stood by Jack Daniel’s,” Jackson once said. “He’s helped me through a lot of good and bad times.”
2. FGL House
Drink of Choice: Old Camp Whiskey
Florida-Georgia Line’s FGL House was opened in 2017 and bottles up the duo’s breezy vibe for anyone missing them amid their hiatus. While you’re wistfully humming away to “Cruise,” you can sip on a drink with the duo’s Old Camp Whiskey for added effect.
“We’ve always been drinking whiskey, and I think it’s just something that’s been organically ordained and put together at the perfect time,” Tyler Hubbard once told Billboard. “It’s something that we’re passionate about and proud of.”
3. Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa
Drink of Choice: Randarita
Miranda Lambert stuck to her Texas roots for her bar on Broadway, Casa Rosa. The Tex-Mex cantina is a unique stop along the smattering of Southernly-themed entertainment centers. Given that, you might want to take a break from the whiskey and the beer if you stop into Casa Rosa and instead opt for Lambert’s own “Randarita.”
Though Lambert is known to have a love affair with tequila, she once told Taste of Country that her drink of choice while on the road, the Randarita, was a “stupidly simple vodka drink” mixed with lemon-lime soda and a raspberry-lemonade Crystal Light mix.
“My trainer, Bill, approves. I mean, he’d rather me not drink, but that’s not an option,” Lambert told the outlet. “I have one before a show and a half during. Later, if I want to throw down, I throw down!”
4. Jason Aldean’s
Drink of Choice: Corona Light
Jason Aldean’s bar stop in Nashville was founded in 2018. Symbols of Aldean’s career are scattered across the multi-tear building – namely a John Deere tractor smack dab in the middle of the bar – so there is no mistaking whose place you’re walking into.
With summer rolling around, what drink should you get at Aldean’s? According to the country superstar, it’s a Corona Light.
“I just think Corona Light and summer go hand in hand,” Aldean said a few years ago. “Of course, I grew up in Georgia and Florida, and I spent every summer of my life at the beach. To me, it was the perfect addition to the summer tour. I think when the weather warms up, people want to come out to show, have a beer.”
5. Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk
Drink of Choice: A Manhattan
Like anything Kid Rock does, his bar is anything but subtle. Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk has five floors, multiple stages, and a full-service steakhouse packed within its walls. While his bar screams down South fun, one of Kid Rock’s drinks of choice is, surprisingly, a Manhattan.
“What I enjoy most about the drink is that it really showcases the nuances you can find in each brand of bourbon,” Rock once told Food Republic. “You can make a Manhattan with Knob Creek and get the boldness and really rich flavors of the spices that come through with the aging. If you make it with Maker’s Mark, you get cherry notes.”
6. Ole Red
Drink of Choice: Smithworks Hard Seltzer
For our last stop on Broadway, we’re visiting Blake Shelton’s “Ole Red.” Shelton’s bar is of course named after his early hit of the same name. While you’re bopping along to some up-and-coming country artists on the Ole Red stage, to truly get the Shelton experience you should also be sipping on some Smithworks vodka.
Fans of The Voice will know, every week you can see Shelton sipping on a mysterious drink while he dishes out some time-honed advice to the next generation of superstars.
“One of the number one questions I get asked every week is ‘What are you drinking on the show?'” Shelton once said in a Twitter video. “‘I’m tired of the question. I’m just going to show you what I’m drinking.”
Turns out the drink is a (heavy) shot of Smithworks and a spritz of Sprite. Though you may not be a nine-time-winning Voice coach, you can get one step closer to emulating his success by drinking like one.
Photo by Katie Kauss
