It’s nice when your hotel has a decent bar. But Garden & Gun says it knows of a handful of hotel bars that are special enough to justify booking a getaway – and Alabama has one of them.

“Seven Hotel Bars Worth a Stay” showcases some inviting vantage points, including an Atlanta rooftop, an Appalachian lodge’s steakhouse and a New Orleans institution housed in a former Catholic church and school. Among them is the watering hole at a resort overlooking Mobile Bay.

Bucky’s Lounge at the Grand Hotel Golf Resort & Spa in Point Clear represents Alabama on the list, and it has some history. The cozy venue apparently didn’t have a proper name until the 1960s, when it was named The Birdcage. One of its fixtures was Aura J. “Bucky” Miller, a bartender known for making a world-class mint julep and for mixing up a signature Brunch Punch.

Miller’s career at the Grand lasted around 60 years, and in the decade before his death in 2002 he served as a “hospitality ambassador.” He was known for greeting returning guests by name even if they hadn’t visited in years. A Press-Register report on his death noted that he had been honored by the Marriott Corp. with the J.W. Marriott Award of Excellence and that “Congress and seven Southern states had passed resolutions honoring him.”

Following his death, The Birdcage Lounge was renamed Bucky’s Birdcage Lounge. The Grand Hotel installed a statue of Miller on its grounds in spring 2005, and it survived the Hurricane Katrina storm surge that did heavy damage to the lounge and other parts of the hotel campus that August. Repairs weren’t complete until November 2006, and extensive remodeling followed in 2017-2018. Somewhere along the way, the “Birdcage” part of the name seems to have fallen out of use.

Garden & Gun asserts that Bucky’s Lounge is “the true ‘grand’ experience at this historic waterfront resort” and recommends sipping an Alabama Bourbon-ade “while watching the sun slip into the bay.”

For details on the other six favored hotel bars, visit gardenandgun.com.