In social histories of the Middle East, coffee and tea houses long constituted focal points in both artistic representation and scholarly research. These were not the only spaces of congregation and interaction, however, just as caffeinated beverages were not the only drinks on tap. Often located in the more cosmopolitan quarters of port cities, the tavern was also a vital site in the urban landscapes of Ottoman society. Featuring not only alcohol, many of these male-dominated establishments also provided their patrons with food and access to entertainment, recreation, and opportunities for fraternization with fellow citizens. Throughout its varied histories, the tavern served more than a locus for social gathering and drinking; it also served the state and its officials variously through time as a target for levying taxes, policing the empire’s subjects and visitors, and enforcing regulation and/or prohibition. In this regard, the tavern existed as a critical site that facilitated official and unofficial state-society encounters, and thus functioned as a place of contact, collaboration, confrontation, and contestation. This study aims to interrogate the place, purpose, and pertinence of the tavern in Ottoman cities in order to explore it both as a locale of consequence unto itself and as a conceptual vantage for observing and assessing the social, political, and material fluidities evident during the late Ottoman era. Such dynamics, particularly as they implicated people’s identities and identity politics, included modernization, globalization and Westernization, accentuation of religious or secular agendas, and particularization and exclusion of others. In such process, the questions of “who” drank “what” and “where” became markers of identity, politics, and class. Amid ongoing social and political debates that center on the place and legal status of alcohol and its consumption in contemporary Turkey, this research on the tavern in late Ottoman period provides a more nuanced understanding of its diverse history and traditions. For this paper, I utilized Ottoman and republican archival documents, contemporary newspapers and periodicals, and memoirs.