Double Down Saloon

The Double Down Saloon calls itself the happiest place on Earth and means it ironically: a dark, graffiti-skinned punk dive off Paradise Road that hasn't closed since 1992 - literally, it's 24/7 - where live punk, ska, surf, and psychobilly bands play every night and the cover charge is permanently zero. P Moss's house rules are painted on the walls: Shut Up and Drink; You Puke, You Clean (a $20 'puke insurance' waiver is available if you'd rather the staff handle it).

The liquid legends are two: Ass Juice, a secret-recipe shot served in a miniature toilet, and the Bacon Martini, invented here in 1998 with bacon-fat-washed vodka - among the first in the country. Everything else is cheap and honest, with the $3-any-drink happy hour running weekdays noon to 5pm. Pool, pinball, and video poker fill the corners; Anthony Bourdain filled a booth more than once.

The terms of entry: cash only (the ATM charges), smoke hangs indoors, shows run ear-splitting, and the whole room is gloriously filthy by design. It has spawned an East Village outpost and the Triple Down inside the Punk Rock Museum, which is all the external validation a bar like this will ever tolerate.