The Last Word Earns Its Name

The cocktail called the Last Word is equal parts gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and lime juice. It was reportedly created at the Detroit Athletic Club during Prohibition and then largely forgotten until a bartender in Seattle revived it in 2004.^{1The Last Word cocktail's history, including its reported origin at the Detroit Athletic Club and its revival by bartender Murray Stenson at the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle in 2004, has been documented by cocktail historians including Ted Haigh and widely reported in cocktail publications.} The drink is herbal, tart, and exactly as strong as it needs to be. It is also, at the bar that bears its name on West Huron Street in Ann Arbor, the best version I have had anywhere.

The Last Word (the bar, not just the drink) sits at 301 West Huron, in a space that commits to the speakeasy aesthetic without making it a costume. The entrance is understated. The room inside is dim, close, and paneled in dark wood. Bartenders wear vests and work with a precision that suggests they have opinions about ice. They do.

The Drinks

The cocktail menu is organized around eras of American cocktail making, which sounds academic but functions as a practical guide. Pre-Prohibition classics (the Sazerac, the Martinez) share the menu with mid-century staples and modern constructions. Each section tells you something about how the drinks evolved, and the bartenders can fill in the gaps if you are curious. This is not a bar that rewards people who already know everything about cocktails. It is a bar that rewards people who are willing to learn.

Order the namesake Last Word first if you have not had one. Gin, Chartreuse, maraschino, lime, shaken and strained into a coupe. The balance between herbal and citrus is exact, with a dry finish that makes you want another sip before you have finished processing the first. A Vieux Carre, when available, is stirred with patience and served at the right temperature: cold enough to sip slowly, warm enough that the rye and cognac express themselves.

The bartender's choice is the move when you cannot decide. Tell them what spirits you like, mention a flavor direction, and let them work. I have done this three times and received three different drinks, all of them better than whatever I would have ordered from the menu. Cocktails run $13 to $17, which is competitive with Echelon and Spencer and priced fairly for the quality of the pour.

The Room

Small rooms force a certain kind of intimacy that larger bars cannot replicate. The Last Word seats maybe forty people, and on a Friday night, that room is full. The bar itself is where the action happens: a few stools, the bartenders working directly in front of you, bottles backlit against the wall. Sitting at the bar here is not an afterthought. It is the experience.

Tables line the opposite wall for groups, and the lighting is calibrated low enough to make the room feel like it belongs to a different era without straining your eyes. Music is present but not competitive with conversation. The volume stays in the range where you can talk at a normal level, which is a design choice more bars should make and fewer bars execute.

There is no television. There is no sports package. The Last Word is a bar for drinking and talking, two activities that have been in the same category for centuries and do not need screens to supplement them.

The Block

West Huron between Main and Ashley has a different character than the South Main corridor a few blocks south. Where South Main has become Ann Arbor's densest cocktail strip (Echelon, Pretzel Bell, Bar Lupulus), West Huron operates at a quieter register. The foot traffic is lighter. The pace is slower.

The Last Word benefits from that context. It is not competing for the Saturday night bar-crawl crowd. It is drawing people who decided in advance that they wanted a specific kind of evening: well-made drinks, a room that respects the drinking, and bartenders who treat the craft as exactly that. The speakeasy reference works because the bar has the substance to back it up.

Every college town has a bar that calls itself a speakeasy. Most of them are bars with dim lighting and a dress code suggestion on the website. The Last Word is the version where the bartenders can tell you the history of every drink on the menu and explain why the ice matters. That distinction is the whole ballgame.

The Last Word is at 301 W Huron St, Ann Arbor. Open Tue-Sat evenings. Reservations not required but recommended on weekends.