Boomer’s Bourbon & Cigar Bar — Restaurant in Asheville

Boomer's can boast a fair selection of whiskey, and I assume the same is true of cigars. They have a vibe, and the Asheville tourists seem to appreciate it. That's all well and good--the idea here is clearly to cater to out of towners.

My sole gripe is that the whiskey pricing here is truly egregious--stupidly so, even in comparison with other, similar bars in the area. I came in toward the end of a busy night, and rather than annoy the bartender by asking for a whiskey list and flipping through it, I simply ordered a neat pour of a mid-shelf bourbon, expecting pricing to be rational and competitive with normal levels. For the record, it was 2 oz of Russell's Reserve 10 Year, a $40 bottle anywhere in the U.S.

The tab for that one drink: $26. I asked how that could possibly be correct, and the bartender replied "Well, it's a 2 oz pour, so..."

Suffice to say, that is insane. Should I have asked for a whiskey menu in advance before making a selection? Clearly. But that same dram of Russel's Reserve 10 Year would cost $10 at many of the other bars within a few minutes walk of Boomer's. At the top end, perhaps you'd pay $15-16 for it. But $26? That's an artificially inflated price that exists solely to take advantage of neophyte bourbon bros and Asheville tourists. Thank god I didn't order the Russell's Reserve Single Barrel or Rare Breed, or lord only knows how much they might have decided to charge. Minutes later, my wife and I walked down the street to another bar, where I drank another 2 oz pour of Four Roses Single Barrel for ... $10. Which is to say, normal pricing.

So beware--the pricing here is absolutely designed to separate rubes from their money, with the assumption that you won't know what anything is meant to cost. If you're really interested in whiskey, there's plenty of other local bars with decent whiskey selections where they...

My fiancé and I visited Asheville and are always eager to try new cigar lounges. Boomer’s was recommend by several locals, but fell short of any interest once we visited. 1) the cigar selection was slim to none with a small display case sized humidor and no prices present, 2) a trip to the bar yielded two manhattan’s with no cherries (the glasses were nice though), 3) an attempt to find a comfortable seating arrangement for two was nearly impossible, 4) the music choice resembled a club rather than a relaxing cigar lounge, 5) when presented with the bill, we were surprised to see that 4 cigars (2 being Nub’s) and two cocktails would end up costing $120 (tip included). This business has a lot of potential, but just fell short of what a cigar lounge is to us. Also, it would be nice to have mouthwash in the restrooms for post cigar...

Don’t waste time here, there are so many awesome places to go with nice people in Asheville. When we visited Boomers an employee was excessively aggressive and rude when we opened the shade umbrella at our outside table. I went inside to talk to the manager, the only other person working was the owner, he said his name was Dan. He said that although they have umbrellas at the tables, we could not use them, he insisted it shaded other tables and it was too nice of a day. We were burning up in the sun. The umbrella only shaded our table. When I asked him to come outside and see that the umbrella only shaded our table he was very aggressive and rude and refused. This establishment is not somewhere worth visiting is such a friendly...