Dram & Draught – Cary

This is Dram & Draught’s Cary bar, in the Fenton development on Main Street. It belongs to a group that began with a single Raleigh room in 2016 and has since grown to seven bars spread around North Carolina.

The idea has stayed the same the whole way through: a neighborhood bar that happens to pour about 300 whiskeys. Cocktails, private bookings and tasting nights fill out the rest, and the rooms are built to be the kind you come back to rather than pass through once.

What to know

• The original Raleigh bar opened in a 1930s filling station.
• Kevin Barrett and Drew Schenck took that bar over in 2016 and kept its bones intact.
• Exposed brick, the old Esso sign and roll-up garage doors onto the patio were all left in place.
• Bench seats at the first bar were made from junkyard cars, and whiskey barrels do the job of stools.