The Alex Speakeasy at the Graham Hotel

The Alex Speakeasy at the Graham Georgetown hotel at 1075 Thomas Jefferson Street NW operates in the concealed bar format that the American cocktail culture revival has adapted from the Prohibition-era speakeasy: the bar with the hidden entrance, the restricted operating hours, the reservation-required access, and the serious cocktail program that together produce the atmosphere of exclusivity that the speakeasy concept generates. The Graham Hotel’s concealed basement bar is among the most committed expressions of the speakeasy format in Georgetown’s nightlife landscape.

The Prohibition era speakeasy was not a concept but a necessity: the illegal bar that operated behind a concealed entrance during the 1920s and early 1930s, when the Volstead Act made the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal in the United States, was the form that American nightlife took when forced underground. The speakeasy format’s revival in the 2010s American cocktail culture was a reference to this history, with the concealed entrance and the password required for entry serving as theatrical elements that the cocktail bar uses to create a sense of discovery and exclusivity.

The cocktail program at The Alex serves the serious cocktail customer who wants the craft preparation that the speakeasy format implies: the house-made syrups and infusions, the careful attention to ice quality and dilution, and the commitment to the historical cocktail canon alongside the contemporary original creations that the bartender’s training and creativity produce. The Thomas Jefferson Street canal-neighborhood setting, in the basement of the Graham Hotel a floor below the Rooftop EATS bar above, provides the subterranean and secretive physical context that the speakeasy format requires.

The bar operates Wednesday through Sunday from 5pm with late closing on Friday and Saturday. Reservations are strongly recommended. The speakeasy format’s appeal in the contemporary cocktail culture draws on the tension between the exclusivity of the hidden bar and the democratic ideal of the public house: the bar that anyone can find if they know where to look is simultaneously exclusive and accessible, which is the social dynamic that the format exploits most effectively. The Alex Speakeasy at the Graham Hotel occupies the basement level that the physical architecture of the canal-level hotel provides, which gives the bar the underground quality that the speakeasy format requires without the artificiality of a simulated basement in a ground-floor space. The craft cocktail program at The Alex serves the Georgetown customer who treats the cocktail as a serious beverage with as much attention to ingredient quality and preparation technique as the wine customer applies to the glass of Burgundy. The house-made syrups, the fresh juice program, and the ice quality that a serious cocktail bar maintains are the components that produce the finished cocktail’s quality, and the bartenders at The Alex work within the framework that these components provide. The Thomas Jefferson Street address, in the canal neighborhood below M Street, gives The Alex the geographic remove from the M Street bar district that the speakeasy identity requires: the customer who knows about The Alex has made a deliberate choice to seek it out rather than stumbling upon it. Hours run Wednesday through Sunday from 5pm.