CHICAGO — Visitors slip through secret doors in New York basements and Chicago funeral parlors to sip cocktails at genuine Prohibition-era speakeasies. These underground bars, born during the 1919-1933 alcohol ban, outlasted federal raids and still pour today.

The Volstead Act, signed into law on October 28, 1919, outlawed alcohol production, sales and transport nationwide. Breweries shuttered. Saloons vanished. But operators adapted fast. They hid stills in basements and turned barber shops into booze dens. Customers whispered passwords to enter, hence the name ‘speakeasy’—a term imported from quiet Irish and English hideouts.

Raids by federal agents couldn’t kill the thirst. By 1925, New York alone counted over 30,000 speakeasies, according to historical records from the era. Many collapsed when the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition on December 5, 1933. A handful endured, now legal landmarks.

One survivor sits beneath a Greenwich Village restaurant. Patrons descend a staircase masked as a phone booth into Chumley’s, opened in 1922. Writers like John Dos Passos knocked back illegal gin here while dodging cops through the back alley. The bar closed briefly after a 2007 fire but reopened with its original brick walls intact.

In Chicago’s Gold Coast, the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge hums with jazz echoes from the 1920s. Al Capone claimed a favorite booth. The spot started as a silent movie house in 1907 before speakeasy kingpin Patrick Tourine transformed it into a booze haven. Live music packs the house nightly, with drinks served in the same scarred wooden booths.

Across the country, similar relics thrive. The Blind Tiger in Charleston, South Carolina, hides behind a wall safe in a 1916 building. Boston’s Bell in Hand Tavern, founded in 1795, went underground during Prohibition with a hidden backroom still serving sailors. In New Orleans, the Old Absinthe House dates to 1806; Jean Lafitte pirates and Andrew Jackson schemed there, but it doubled as a speakeasy in the 1920s.

Detroit’s Sugar House sits in a former bakery vault from 1920. The password system persists—text the number on arrival. San Francisco’s House of Shields, established 1908, hosted Mark Twain amid its Prohibition liquor flows. New York’s Flatiron Room stocks rare whiskeys in a vault once used for bootleg storage.

These spots preserve more than decor. They hold artifacts: Capone’s matchbooks at the Green Mill, original bathtubs-turned-stills in Kentucky’s Peerless Park. Owners maintain secrecy rituals. At Seattle’s Liberty Bar, a speakeasy within a 1920s theater, guests buzz a hidden button.

Attendance surges as nostalgia peaks. The Green Mill draws 500 patrons some nights. Chumley’s saw a 40% business jump post-renovation. Historians credit the allure to tangible links with outlaws and luminaries. F. Scott Fitzgerald downed drinks at New York’s 21 Club, now with a preserved speakeasy entrance.

Not all survived unscathed. Some, like Philadelphia’s City Tap House basement, retain Prohibition tunnels but modernized interiors. Others, such as Louisville’s Seelbach Bar, boast a 1905 vintage with speakeasy lore tied to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Enthusiasts hunt these addresses via word-of-mouth or apps. No neon signs mark the way. Push the right bookcase in Los Angeles’ Cole’s French Dip, open since 1908, and find the city’s oldest speakeasy. Inside, the Varnish bar slings punches from the era.

As craft cocktails boom, these venues blend history with mixology. Bartenders pour period recipes using house-made bitters. The draw? A taste of defiance. Prohibition failed to dry out America. These 12 speakeasies prove it, one hidden pour at a time.