1. Southern Hospitality (Upper East Side) - The 14 HD TVs and a large HD projection screen aren't the real excess here -- that's the $80 premium VIP package. All you can drink, all you can eat appetizers (the fried pickles are absurd), and guaranteed seating to make sure once the fat is on, it stays on. Free Jim Beam from 4 to 6 only sweetens the deal. The place to be.
2. 40/40 (Flatiron) - Like stepping into a hip-hop video, minus the fisheye. All-white, super sleek. Oh, and Kobe Bryant is holding a party for his Laker friends and all the video hos this side of the Bronx.
3. Village Pourhouse (Greenwich Village) - 50 bottles, around 24 drafts at any given moment. But with the $30 all you can drink Bud Light draft from kickoff until end of the game, we both know what you'll be drinking.

Over on our Mixology site in the Pros section, we asked the hottest bartenders in New York and Los Angeles to whip up a specialty cocktail while describing their perfect New Year's Eve. Check out Darryl Robinson -- a.k.a. "Dr. Mixologist" -- as he creates the Hudson Pear at his home base of NYC's Hudson Bar. Here he tells us about cruising the NYC bar scene and his preference for beautiful people, clothes, and cocktails in combination.

What do you do? What do you drink? I’m a bartender and also the in-house mixologist, so I helped create the cocktail list that you’ll see at the Hudson Bar. I also entertain the guests at the bar with my wonderful bartending skills. I am by nature a vodka drinker. I realized earlier on that it was probably one of those things that didn’t give me a hangover. Vodka is simple, it’s easy, and it’s clean. I like vodka martinis and vodka on the rocks with a squeeze of lemon, vodka on the rocks with a splash of cranberry. I don’t really like to put too much in there, so anything I add is usually a splash. I never want to cover up the taste of vodka too much.

Liskula Cohen, a model who has posed for Armani and Versace as well as gracing the cover of Vogue, is suing Google over comments made by a blog hosted on the server. Specifically, the anonymous blogger in question dubbed Cohen the “#1 skanky superstar” following an incident in the bar at the Hudson Hotel where the doorman “was jailed after smashing her in the face with a vodka bottle,” says the New York Daily News. The site went on to call the model “a desperate ‘fortysomething’ who ‘may have been hot 10 years ago’." Oh, yeah, and "desperation seeps from her soul, if she even has one." Ouch, getting a bottle in the face aside, no one deserves to hear that. Besides, Cohen is only 36.

Sure, you've been following the fun on our Mixology site, where BlackBook and Grey Goose recruited the best bartenders from New York and Los Angeles to whip up their signature drinks on camera, all while relating their own ideal New Year's experience. But perhaps you really just want to see those recipes demonstrated point by point, shake by shake? Then check out the collected bonus clips above, which describe and demonstrate each drinkmaking experience in exacting detail. On tap: Cielo, Campbell Apartment, Hudson Bar, and Larry Lawrence in New York; and Ecco, The Edison, and Saints N' Sinners in Los Angeles. Click the "MENU" button on the video player to access all seven clips. And don't forget to thank the skilled shooters at Two Penguins Productions for making all this holiday cheer possible in the first place. Chin-chin.

We've almost made it to New Year's Eve, and the Mixology site brought to you by BlackBook and Grey Goose keeps rolling out the hits. Today's choice beverage from the prime party venues of New York and Los Angeles is the Hudson Pear, courtesy of "Dr. Mixologist" at NYC's Hudson Bar. Check out what the other Pros are cooking too.