"You don't need a password to enter these days," the website for 1923 Prohibition Bar admits. "Just find the bookcase." It stands on the walkway of The Shoppes at Mandalay Place, the shopping bridge between Mandalay Bay and Luxor at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip, and behind it is a bourbon cocktail bar with seven kinds of Old Fashioned, a whiskey vault holding three ages of Pappy Van Winkle and burlesque on Friday and Saturday nights with no cover charge.
Behind the Bookcase at Mandalay Place
From Mandalay Bay's casino floor, take the escalators by the House of Blues up to Mandalay Place and look to your right for the bookcase next to Minus5 Ice Bar, set between two red velvet curtains under a "1923 PROHIBITION BAR" sign. The sign on the shelf, as Las Vegas Then and Now quoted it in 2023, reads "Prohibition has ended. Push to enter," and the bookcase does in fact swing open.
Noel Bowman, who also runs Minus5, opened the bar in the spring of 2014 as 1923 Bourbon & Burlesque, with Holly Madison as partner and headliner, in the space that had been Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce. In 2024 he opened a second 1923 in the Venetian's Grand Canal Shoppes, up a hidden elevator above another Minus5, and the bar's own site now bills the Mandalay Place room as "The Original Las Vegas Speakeasy," a title it gave itself. The bar's site never explains the name, and the Review-Journal ties it only to the room's 1920s decor, so take 1923 as a Prohibition year rather than a founding date.
Gold Velvet, Barrels and NOLA Nights
1923 Prohibition Bar covers 3,700 square feet, and while its private-events page says it can take up to 300 guests, the bar's own floor plan counts 200 at once, with 120 in the main lounge, 45 in the State Room and 35 in the Parlor Room. The lounge has crystal and chain chandeliers, gold tufted-velvet banquettes, white-and-gold Louis-style settees, an upright double bass, mounted bull heads and a white-brick fireplace with "1923" on the mantel. The back of the bookcase door is shelved with barrels stamped "1923," and at least nine more sit on a rack against the brick. The fireplaces burn video flames on flat-screen TVs. Bowman told Las Vegas Magazine in 2021, "We call 1923 a modern speakeasy. While our look is somewhat authentic, we certainly have the classic drinks, but we're toying around with some new, modern mixology."
The weekend show is NOLA Nights, live music and burlesque on Friday and Saturday from about 9pm, free to watch, with pianist Troy Romzek named in the bar's lineups and the burlesque dancers rotating around him. VIP tables are sold online up to two weeks ahead, priced per person with no price posted, for three hours with two drinks per seat, and they're non-refundable. Las Vegas Magazine put a table for four at $300 in 2023. Ghost Stories, a separate ticketed mind-reading and magic show, runs in the Parlor Room on weekend evenings. Weeknight visitors sometimes find no entertainment at all, so come on a Friday or Saturday if the burlesque is the reason you're going.
Bourbon and Old Fashioneds at 1923 Prohibition Bar
The whiskey list runs to 19 brands and about 52 bottlings, from Basil Hayden's and Michter's to five WhistlePigs, and "The VAULT (When Available)" holds 12 more, including Pappy Van Winkle 10, 12 and 23, WhistlePig Boss Hog, Yamazaki 18 and Little Book. The Bourbon Flight is Buffalo Trace, Old Forester 86, Smokewagon Las Vegas Bourbon and Wild Turkey 81.
Start with the 1923 Barrel-Aged Old Fashioned, which the menu lists as Kentucky Straight Bourbon aged with Amaro Averna, Ferrand Dry Curacao, and Bitters, while the homepage names the bourbon as Nevada's own Smoke Wagon. The Averna stands in for the sugar and the curacao for the orange peel, so it's an Old Fashioned with the garnish built in. Most of the other six specialty Old Fashioneds go sweet, like the Maple Bacon, made from Bourbon, Maple Syrup, Bitters, and House Seasoned Bacon Rim Garnish, and the Fat Elvis, made from Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, Howler Head Banana Bourbon, Huckleberry Syrup, Orange Bitters, with a Graham Cracker Crust Rim. Traditionalists can order the Derby Manhattan, with Woodford Reserve, Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth, DOM Benedictine and Orange and Chocolate Bitters. The gin drink to try is the Killer Bees Knees, made with Bulldog Gin, American Honey Liqueur, Ancho Reyes Chili Liqueur, Honey, and Fresh Lemon Juice. And for those on the wagon, the Zer-Old Fashioned is Lyre's non-alcoholic American Malt Whiskey Substitute with non-alcoholic bitters, sugar and orange.
The menu doesn't print prices, and the usual complaint in reviews is that 1923 is expensive, so ask before you order from the Vault. Groups of eight or more can book a bourbon tasting with an instructor, four pours and a cocktail, in three tiers, which the bar's 2022 tasting sheet priced at $45, $55 and $65 a person, subject to availability, and smaller groups are told to order the flight instead.
Hours, Walk-ins and Dress Code
Seats at 1923 Prohibition Bar are walk-in, first come first served, with no cover and no minimum, and what you can book is a weekend VIP table, a group bourbon tasting or a Ghost Stories ticket. It opens at 11am every day and closes at midnight Sunday through Thursday and at 2am on Friday and Saturday. There's no dress code, though the bar suggests dressing the part, and it's 21 and over with ID. The whole bar sometimes closes for private buyouts, so check the Mandalay Bay page of its site before you go.
For more speakeasies on the Strip, the janitor's door at The Barbershop Cuts & Cocktails and the donkey door at Ghost Donkey are both in the Cosmopolitan, and all three bars are in our guide to the best bars in Las Vegas.
There's no food at 1923, so the Cookie Monster Old Fashioned (DoughBoy Cookie Dough Whiskey, Frangelico, Chocolate Bitters, and Lemon) will have to do for dessert.
Photos: 1923 Prohibition Bar, 1923 Prohibition Bar
