HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT
Death in the afternoon. Linger, a swanky Denver cocktail restaurant and bar, had a previous existence as a functioning mortuary for 81 years. Diners — who eat in what used to be a garage for hearses — can lean into the eatery’s morbid origins by ordering the Corpse Reviver, a gin cocktail dyed black by activated charcoal. Fun/disgusting detail: The water pitchers are formaldehyde-style bottles.
Way down under. This silver mine in Zacatecas, Mexico, shut down in 1960 — but by 1975 it was a tourist destination and by 1978 it was a bar. It still is: To get to Bar Mina El Edén, you’ll have to take a four-minute train ride through a claustrophobia-inducing 1,770-foot-long underpass. It’s supposedly haunted by a miner named Roque who was buried in a rockslide, and the deadly Piedra de Roque — which contains rum, vodka and tequila — is named for him.
Labyrinth. It’s easy to get lost in the depths of Moritzbastei, a three-story underground bar housed in the remains of a 16th-century fortress. The space, which was used as an unofficial bomb shelter and nearly destroyed during the bombardment of Leipzig in 1943, is now routinely packed with ravers. It also serves veggie lasagne and beer.
All aboard. Thailand’s Floating Raft Restaurant lies along the famous “Death Railway” — whose grueling, sadistic construction methods killed 105,000 Allied prisoners of war and Asian laborers during World War II. Now it’s a place where tourists can raise a solemn glass in memory of those who died there, as they watch the slow-moving train and an actual bridge on the actual River Kwai.
Traumatic memories. As with many locales in Beirut, B018 doesn’t have an exact address. To find this club, known as the heart of the city’s electronic music scene, you’ll have to go to the Karantina neighborhood — yes, that means Quarantine — and ask around. It’s been holding all-nighters since 1998, and is built near the locale of the Karantina Massacre, when as many as 1,500 people were killed in 1976.
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