There are travel guides for just about every traveler out there. Going on a bike tour of Portland? There’s a guide for that. Guides for vacationing with pets, the best beaches, and even the oddest tourist attractions.  But when you are done sightseeing for the day and you are ready for that much needed cocktail, where do you go? A good concierge should be able to send you in the right direction, but what if their idea of a good time is a joint with a margarita machine and jello shots?

Will Glass was thinking this very thing when he came up with Drink Deck. A hospitality veteran, Will started with his hometown of Chicago, hitting all the best places to get a drink. What he ended up with was what he calls the “Bar Enthusiasts Travel Guide”: 52 bars for you to wet your whistle, wrapped up neatly in a deck of cards. Each card comes complete with genre (nite club, beer bar, craft cocktail, etc.), contact info, and neighborhood info. The best part? Each card also acts as a little coupon that does not expire, with discounts ranging from $10 to 30% off your tab.

If you’re not keen on carrying around a deck of cards when you are out on the town, fret not. There is currently an iPhone app for Chicago, Portland and New Orleans (released yesterday), and apps for Android are on the way soon. App users have a bit of an advantage over the physical deck as well; the app will reload itself when new decks are printed, at no extra charge to you. And did we mention that those discounts do not expire?

We downloaded the New Orleans version of Drink Deck in anticipation of Tales of the Cocktail in July. While we haven’t yet had a drink, we have had a chance to play with the app. It works well, is easy to navigate, and has a handy map feature you can use just by clicking on the address above the picture. Useful for people like us, who in a place like New Orleans, will be perpetually lost.

Next city on the list is Miami, and Will tells us there are several others in the works. We’ll be sure to recount (to the best of our ability) how this nifty little app works when we drink our way through NOLA. After all, this was an app built for people like us.

To buy the iPhone app ($29.99) click here.

For more information about Drink Deck, or to buy a physical deck, click here.

Drinking Travel Guide