The Imperial at Washburn Imports – Sanford

If you are looking for a bar with real drinks and an outstanding Bourbon selection. This is the place for you! This is craft cocktails at there best with great décor to match!
Always a great experience!

The Imperial is one of the best bars in the area. They serve craft cocktails, great selection of whisky, craft beers and wine. The staff is courteous, friendly and very helpful if you’re not sure what to order. Low-​key atmosphere with beautiful exotic furniture, which you can sit on and purchase if you like.

If you are a whisky connoisseur, this is the place for you! I am not into whisky, so I just had cider. However, the have an EXTENSIVE selection of whisky and plenty of creative cocktails. Nice, chill ambiance with beautiful antiques all around.

Great place, great drinks, great beer. Just a chill place to hang out with friends in an environment that is inviting to people cut from all avenues of the spectrum.

Great place if you want to go somewhere unique and different. Definitely not your typical sports bar that ends up developing a club-​like atmosphere. The antique furniture not only gives it a a hipster/​indie vibe, but it also makes you feel right at home! As far as the drinks go, they are fantastic. Another thing that you cannot find at a typical sports bar is hand-​crafted drinks! I have been three times and the menu has been a bit different every time. As I love trying new things, the changing menu is great for me! And I still have yet to find a drink that I don’t love! Warning: they are all very strong! Definitely not a bad thing… but be aware!

Very different atmosphere than any other bar, especially for Sanford. I live in Orlando and I drive all the way to Sanford for this bar. Hand crafted drinks and small batch liquors make the prices worth it. The only unfortunate thing is that apparently there’s a lot cleptos in town bc they don’t have the copper cups anymore.

Love this place, awesome craft cocktail bar. Great selection of whiskey/​Bourbon well over hundred. The bartenders are very knowledgeable and know what they’re doing. Every cocktail I’ve had on their menu has been fantastic, I usually get at least one. Plus a classic whiskey sour with egg yolk. Yum :)

Nice atmosphere. They sell the furniture they have there and the cocktails are amazing. Love bartenders who knows how to do their job and these two defitinely did. They were extremely professional. The bar was like a modern speakeasy with music matching the atmosphere.
We had 2 beers and 2 cocktails for $ 30 plus tip. We’ll be back.

The best place in Sanford for the perfectly crafted classic cocktail. Muddled, mixed with real fruits and juices.
They don’t serve food, but sometimes they do popcorn, and they’re totally okay with bringing in outside food for snacks. I came in one night when they were grilling bacon for their bacon cocktail, and they let us snag a piece. It was fab!
It’s also part of a furniture store, you can actually buy any of the quirky décor that you see! Grab a seat by the window and watch Sanford at night.

I was a great bar my cousin took us to while we walked around downtown Sanford. What a cool place. I have driven past it hundreds of times and never realized it was anything more than a furniture store. Inside cool repurposed and handmade furniture had created various group seatings. You can sit and enjoy your whiskey and then later buy the seating arrangement. Lol cool. Amazing whiskey selection and cocktail choice with some great beers as well. Expect to drop some $$. We had 3 whiskeys and one cocktail and with tip it was $ 43. I met two different people working there both were super nice. I’ll definitely be back!

Through varies family and friends, I’d heard nothing but good reviews about Imperials. So when I moved to Sanford, I decided to make this one of my first stops.
The quality of this bar blew away even my highest expectations. The décor alone would make me come back time and time again but the drinks we’re hand crafted, unique and absolutely delicious. All three of the bartenders had their own personalities that matched the bar perfectly and the quality of people there was high. It had fantastic music going all night and it was the prefect location for both large groups and small.
I will must definitely be returning.

Walking into The Imperial, I knew if it was anything like its sister location in Orlando, I’d be hooked, but the Sanford location blows Orlando out of the water. The location at décor is similar, both locations found within a Washburn Imports, but the history of the Sanford location is neat. The shop was a J.C. Penny in 1910 and the original ceiling tiles are still intact. There are many pods of seating and even on a busy night, my party was able to find a comfortable place to sit. The décor inside and the window nook is very nice.
What really makes this location stand out is the full liquor bar. Bartenders will mix up specialty cocktails with fresh ingredients and a lot of love. I had a Mixed Berry Bramble and a St Augustine Mule. Both were perfect and unique. They seem to have many selections and recommended mixed drinks with whiskey. They even have a Whiskey Wednesday special and some sort of a punchcard where you build your way up to a bottle of great whiskey for 50 punches. The bartenders seem to know their stuff.

This is my favorite bar in Central Florida. It’s not filled with irritating dickheads, and it’s a fun getaway from Orlando. Unlike the sister Imperial in Ivanhoe village near downtown Orlando, this bar offers liquor and mixed cocktails. Prices are fairly reasonable for the quality of the drinks. Smoking is permitted outside the bar in front. No smoking inside because of the lovely furniture you’re sitting on. My only gripe is that sometimes it feels understaffed, especially on a Saturday or Friday night. Check it out!

This absolutely one of my husband and my favorite spots!
The cocktails are fabulous. If you do not see something on the menu, you can simply tell the bartender the taste you are looking for and in my experience, something great will come from it. These are good, classic drinks, which I think are always so fun to try. They also have a great beer selection that is constantly being updated.
The ambiance is so much fun as this is a furniture store during the day. You are able to sit and have drinks on any of it. You can also go outside if you prefer, but there is not a lot of room out there.
I would highly recommend The Imperial for a nice night out with your significant other or a group of friends. Due to the different sizes in furniture, there is more intimate seating or large tables.
We have really enjoyed our experiences here and look forward to returning for our next night out.

The drinks are hand-​crafted and very unique! This is a great place for a casual evening or to enjoy a special occasion.
The locations is a furniture store by day and bar by night. Sitting on $ 2000 benches and drinking speciality cocktails makes for a great experience.

This is the place to go for craft cocktails and a unique atmosphere. Take a date here, go with friends, or just grab a drink after work. The bartenders are friendly and earnest in their craft and the drinks they pull together are outstanding. I also love that this location doubles as an antique store during daylight hours… the feeling of drinking inside of a location like this creates a mood that is serious, unique, and fun all at the same time.

Oh, The Imperial… now this is THE place for exotic, hard-​to-​find drink specials. If only it was located closer to home. Nevermind. That’s probably part of its enduring charm.
It’s the only bar where I am comfortable using the word «mixologist.» It’s the only place that deserves to be snobbish, yet it feels relatively laid back for the quality of drink provided. My absolute favorite is the Vieux Carré, and I am not a big bourbon drinker. MMmmm.
To me, there are two types of great films: the ones you can watch over and over again and never get tired of, and the ones that you only watch every couple of years, but they remain as unforgettable as the first time you saw them. To me, The Imperial is analogous to the second category. My wife and I only go there a few times a year, primarily during the annual Love Your Shorts Film Festival. But so far, the ambiance and drinks have remained as good as the first time we set foot in there.

Love this place! The atmosphere and drinks are great! It’s definitely a hidden gem in downtown Sanford, and this may be why every time I’ve been there it’s never been busy. But then again, sadly, downtown Sanford doesn’t get too busy anyway.

Ve-​lee een-​ter-​es-​ting
By now, y’all have accurate and far superior reviews about this place — who they are, what they ‘do’ during the day, and how they transform themselves at night. Both times I’ve been here, it’s for a special function, which means I don’t quite know what it’s like when it’s not reserved like that. Service at the bar is usually attentive. My one complaint is their wine portions. These glasses are SMALL, and the way they filled mine at least, it’s usually at the half way mark, at best. Given that these are maybe 7 ounce filled to the brim, each pour is not much north of 3 oz. (keeping in mind the shape of that upside-​down cone). At prices ranging from $ 7 – 10, that’s not what I would call even ‘fair’, never mind ‘generous’. Now of course, that might be just the size when they have a special function like ours, which, of course, brings up a whole new different issue…

This was my first time here and I was really impressed. Sam and Keith were the bar tenders and they know how to make amazing cocktails. They have no juice, sweet mixers or soda, but they muddle and squeeze real fruit, have many bitters and spirits to work their magic. They have a really nice beer selection, and they make sure you get a really clean glass and the beer are poured properly.
I started with a Southern Whisky smash. I nice whisky muddles with lemons and mint. It was a great summer sipper. My wife had a jalapeño margarita and you really could smell the pepper. My second drink was just bacon infused bourbon straight up with a bacon garnish and a house made brandied cherry. My wife had a cucumber, gin mojito that was fantastic, not sweet, but really refreshing. We finally split a corpse reviver that was amazing and made with Absinthe.
The décor is fantastic. It is in the Washburn Imports store in Sanford. We would take our drinks and look at the cool furniture. This is the best bar I have been to in Central Florida. Don’t go looking for cheap beer specials or 2 for 1 cheap well drinks, this place has amazing craft cocktails!