Cincinnati. Wow, what a city! Who knew? Well, nobody, judging by a straw poll of dim and dozy friends, most of whom didn’t even know where it was. One was genuinely convinced that Cincinnati was in either Sardinia or Sicily but couldn’t confidently say which. Another vaguely recollected that trash TV host Jerry Springer had once been its mayor and that Cincinnati was most definitely in Ohio: ‘You know, down by Georgia, Alabama and, um, Nevada.’ A third had heard that Vice-President J.D. Vance lives in the city, and that abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe once had. All Simon knew was that it was home to consumer goods firm Procter & Gamble.
So, just for the record, Cincinnati (aka Queen City or Cincy) is in the south of Ohio, the ‘Buckeye State’ which is bordered by Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan. The city is separated from that of Covington, northern Kentucky, by the Ohio River – over which run many bridges including the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, once the longest such bridge in the world and prototype for Roebling’s fabled Brooklyn Bridge.
Cincy is a doddle to get to with daily BA flights from Heathrow. Leaving the airport is less of a doddle, thanks to a complicated and, in my experience, unique system whereby you wait an hour at the carousel to collect your bag, have it snatched away and put on a conveyor belt by an official who sends you back through security with your hand luggage – belts and boots off, keys out of pocket, blah, blah, blah – and brusquely instructs you to go to another carousel half a mile away to wait for your bag all over again. It’s bonkers.
Happily, barely 15 minutes later, thanks to Uber, you’re checking in to boutique Hotel Covington in time for cocktails. I made straight for Mainstrasse and the Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar (lovingly shortened by locals to OKBB), famed for its collection of more than 850 bourbons and 150 other whiskies, and grabbed a restorative Le Marche cocktail, comprised of Michter’s Rye, Meletti Amaro, Bénédictine and Scrappy’s Orleans Bitters. Oh, my goodness, how tasty was that?
After the OKBB, to ensure I was on track, I made for Wiseguy Lounge, a speakeasy above a pizzeria. Here I had a Godfather, made from 1792 Small Batch Bourbon, Sazerac Rye, Demerara gum syrup, Jerry Thomas Bitter Truth and bourbon barrel smoke. Oh, yep, I was on track.
Both Cincinnati and Covington – a part of Greater Cincinnati settled like Cincy in the 19th century by German immigrants – are a joy to walk around, not least because of the remarkable street art. And it really is art, not graffiti, exquisitely executed on scores of buildings: vast, stunning paintings – a still life, say, a portrait, a trompe l’oeil – that enthral and uplift you. So absorbing are they that I walked more than 11 miles my first day.
And it’s impossible not to be absorbed, moved and inspired by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center set on the banks of the Ohio River – the great natural barrier that separated the slave states of the south from the free states of the north.
I spent more time in the Cincinnati Art Museum than I had expected and loved the smaller Taft Museum of Art with its paintings by Corot, Gainsborough, Goya, Hals, Raeburn, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Turner and more.
For a bit of light relief – pardon the pun – I couldn’t resist the American Sign Museum, the largest public museum in the country, with a bewitchingly nostalgic collection of pre-electric and flickering neon street and advertising signs. Pure Americana.
I ate remarkably well, be it doorstep sandwiches at Young Buck Deli, disgustingly tasty three-way spaghetti at Skyline Chili, scrumptious artisanal ice cream at Graeter’s or slices of goetta (a ground beef, pinhead oats and spice sausage unique to Cincy) in Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine (OTR): once a no-go part of town notorious for violence but now deeply trendy. And if restaurants such as Nolia, Salazar and Wildweed don’t feature in the new Michelin Guide’s expanded American Great Lakes edition, I will write immediately and complain.
One friend was genuinely convinced that Cincinnati was in either Sardinia or Sicily but couldn’t confidently say which
It was bourbon, though, that kept drawing me in. The whiskey that may be only thus termed if it’s distilled in the United States is made from a minimum 51 per cent corn spirit, is distilled to no more than 160 proof (80%vol), contains no additional colour or flavour, and spends at least two years maturing in charred, new oak barrels. Bourbon doesn’t have to be made in Kentucky, but most of it is and that’s what brought me here.
I blended my own at Wenzel Distillery, had the jolliest tasting at Second Sight Spirits, sampled terrifyingly potent liquors at Revival Vintage Spirits (120-year-old pure grain alcohol anyone?) and enjoyed some astoundingly fine examples at New Riff Distilling, whose gloriously spicy, toffee-laden 4-Year-Old was a worthy winner of World’s Best Bourbon at the 2026 World Whiskies Awards.
My highlight, though, was Ghost Baby in OTR, an unmissable late-night speakeasy four floors underground in an old tunnel once used to brew beer. I forget how many sublime bourbon cocktails I knocked back here and if it wasn’t for Big T, the all-but-7ft bouncer who gently and genially guided me to my Uber, I doubt I would have made it home. A true gent!
Do go. Cincy’s a blast. And remember me to Big T.
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