7 Cities With The Best Cocktails

From a Hong Kong bar famous for its mortadella sandwiches to a Barcelona bar hidden behind a refrigerator door, seven cities now define what it means to drink exceptionally well. Each has built a drinking culture of its own, from mezcal labs to hotel martini trolleys.

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Barcelona: Home of Two Former World No. 1s

Barcelona earned its reputation as one of Europe's great cocktail capitals through sustained excellence. The city claims two bars on the 2026 World's 50 Best Bars list: Sips at No. 16 and Paradiso at No. 17. Both previously held the number-one global ranking, with Sips winning in 2023 and Paradiso in 2022. This isn't coincidence—it's the result of perfect conditions meeting talented bartenders.

The city offers affordable rents compared to London or New York, access to quality Mediterranean ingredients, and an international population curious about new flavors. Former London bartenders like Simone Caporale relocated specifically for Barcelona's manageable size and vibrant atmosphere. His bar Sips serves "haute couture cocktails at prêt-à-porter prices," using modern extraction techniques and custom glassware crafted by local artisans. Meanwhile, Paradiso hides behind a pastrami shop's refrigerator door, delivering multi-sensory experiences where cocktails arrive via miniature steam trains or emerge from treasure chests releasing puffs of smoked Mediterranean herbs.

Which cities have the best cocktails? Barcelona, London, Mexico City, Hong Kong, New York, Singapore and Buenos Aires, at bars like Sips, Paradiso, Handshake Speakeasy and Bar Leone.

How strict is the reservation policy for Barcelona cocktail bars? Sips requires an advance booking through its website. Paradiso runs a virtual queue you join by scanning a QR code at the door; arrive around 6:30 p.m., well before the 9:30 p.m. rush when the DJs start. Most cocktails cost €10 to €15, a bargain at this level.

Can you visit multiple bars in one night in Barcelona? Yes. Bars in El Born and Eixample sit within walking distance of each other, though the waits at the famous ones can cut a crawl short.

London: Sustained Cocktail Innovation

London has appeared on every World's 50 Best Bars list since the rankings began. It stays there with a mix of lab-style bars and old-school elegant ones. Tayēr + Elementary, fifth in the world in 2025, built its name on a dual-concept approach: Elementary serves tapped cocktails in seconds from an industrial diner-style front bar, while Tayēr operates as a mixology lab with daily-changing menus centered on a hexagonal bar station.

The Connaught Bar in Mayfair ranks eighth on the 2026 list, London's highest entry, and has been a fixture of the ranking for well over a decade. The hotel bar reinvented itself in 2008, loosening up service without losing any polish. Its martini trolley comes to the table, where the bartender mixes each drink to the guest's taste. Bartenders from around the world come to both to study how they run a room.

Do London cocktail bars accept walk-ins? Both bars at Tayēr + Elementary are walk-in only Tuesday through Saturday, and waits can stretch to 30 to 60 minutes at peak hours. The Connaught takes reservations and moves at a more relaxed pace.

How much should you budget for London cocktail bars? Elementary's tapped cocktails start around £10 to £12, while drinks at the Connaught run £16 to £22, hotel bar prices. Can you make a night of just these two? Not easily: they sit in different neighborhoods, Old Street and Mayfair. A better pairing is Tayēr + Elementary with Satan's Whiskers in Bethnal Green, No. 29 on the 2026 list and a short hop east of Old Street.

Mexico City: Agave Spirits Heritage Meets Innovation

Mexico City claimed the World's Best Bar title in 2024 through Handshake Speakeasy, which finished second in 2025 and sixth in 2026. The win capped years of work by Mexican bartenders set on retiring old stereotypes about how their country drinks. Handshake runs two spaces. The ground floor pairs Great Gatsby-inspired decor and a '90s soundtrack with kitchen-minded drinks like a clarified piña colada; the basement plays hip-hop and serves the Fig Martini, presented as a floral bouquet.

The bar's success stems from elaborate preparation—drinks often require 48 hours to craft in the on-site laboratory run by manager Yiyi Aparicio. The Salt N Pepper paloma, for instance, uses mezcal infused with strawberries for 24 hours combined with bell peppers slow-cooked with water, citric acid, sugar, and wood. All that technique serves Mexican ingredients, from mezcal to native herbs. The scene runs well beyond Handshake, to Licorería Limantour and Bar Mauro.

How do you get a table at Handshake? Book through OpenTable up to two weeks in advance, though popular time slots disappear within hours of release. Tables come with a 90-minute limit.

What's the price range for Mexico City cocktail bars? Cocktails cost 250 to 700 pesos ($14 to $40), expensive by local standards but in line with other world-class bars. Are there alternatives nearby? Yes. Juárez, the neighborhood around Handshake, packs several ranked bars into a few blocks, so it's easy to make a night of it.

Hong Kong: The Neighborhood Bar, Perfected

Bar Leone's 2025 World's Best Bar win was the first for any bar in Asia, and it kept the title in 2026. The Hong Kong establishment first reached the top within three years of opening through a deceptively simple approach: treat guests like neighborhood regulars. Founder Lorenzo Antinori deliberately rejected technique-heavy trends in favor of classic cocktails executed perfectly with seasonal ingredients. It even emails its recipes to anyone who subscribes. Elsewhere in Asia, the best bars in Busan run from beachfront craft breweries to a speakeasy behind a bookcase.

The drinks are only part of the draw. The 100-gram hand-sliced mortadella sandwiches became so popular they're now as famous as the drinks. The interior mixes football jerseys with vintage Italian spirits prints, creating casual warmth rather than intimidating sophistication. There's no reservation system—guests queue democratically regardless of status. This "cocktails for the people" philosophy resonates in a city where many bars emphasize exclusivity. Antinori's approach signals a broader industry shift toward accessibility, where outstanding hospitality matters as much as technical skill.

Visiting Bar Leone: How long are wait times? Expect 30- to 60-minute waits on weekends, with a queue forming before the 5 p.m. opening. Weekday evenings around 10 p.m. are quieter. What's the atmosphere like? Wood-paneled space with neon and vinyl feels more neighborhood joint than luxury destination, with bartenders engaging guests in conversation rather than performing silently. Can you try the famous sandwich without drinking? Technically yes, but it's a bar with excellent snacks, not a restaurant, and the standing crowd makes that clear.

New York: Experimental Food-Inspired Mixology

New York leads North America on the 2026 World's 50 Best Bars list with four entries, including Schmuck at No. 11 and Sip & Guzzle at No. 14. Double Chicken Please exemplifies the city's current direction, creating cocktails inspired by dishes rather than traditional flavor profiles. The bar's two-room layout splits between Free Range's walk-in front section serving tapped cocktails and The Coop's reservation-only back room featuring the full menu with drinks like Cold Pizza (tomato-forward with Parmigiano Reggiano and burnt toast) and French Toast (vodka with brioche, coconut milk, and maple syrup).

This food-meets-cocktail approach required rethinking traditional bartending. Founder GN Chan describes the process as "hacking design," deconstructing dishes to understand which elements translate to liquid form. The kitchen keeps pace with dishes like popcorn chicken with salted egg yolk dip, under chef Mark Chou, formerly of Le Bernardin and Eleven Madison Park. Attaboy represents New York's other strength: the speakeasy revival. This unmarked walk-in bar serves no menu—guests describe preferences to bartenders who custom-craft drinks. Between them, they cover both ends of New York drinking.

How difficult are reservations? Double Chicken Please releases about 10 Coop reservations a night, and they go the moment they appear. Free Range accepts walk-ins but expect hour-plus waits on weekends.

What about cost? Cocktails in Free Range run $21-22, and Coop drinks cost $19-22.

Can you bar-hop effectively? The Lower East Side packs several ranked bars into a few blocks, though time limits (Double Chicken Please enforces 90 minutes) and long waits may limit how many you can visit in one evening.

Singapore: Menus You Read Like Magazines

Singapore's cocktail scene centers on Jigger & Pony, No. 18 on the 2026 World's 50 Best Bars list. The bar has kept its place on the list for years through its distinctive "menuzines"—magazine-style cocktail menus requiring months of research. Its Embrace menu spans 68 pages divided into sections like "Embrace Change" featuring experimental drinks and "Embrace Tradition" showcasing classic cocktails with contemporary twists, such as a Paloma built on aged, smoky tequila and a house-made guava and pink grapefruit soda.

The bar calls its service style "convivial hospitality"—from Latin "con vivere" meaning "with life"—creating a sociable, festive atmosphere rather than stuffy formality. This philosophy extends throughout Singapore's cocktail community, visible in bars like Atlas with its 1,300-bottle gin collection housed in Art Deco grandeur, and Nutmeg & Clove drawing on local "mama shop" nostalgia and herbalist traditions. Bartenders from across Asia train here and take the habits home.

Exploring Singapore's Bar Scene: Should you make reservations? Jigger & Pony takes reservations and usually has room, especially during happy hour, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Walk-ins work for many Singapore bars, which lack the extreme waits common in New York or London. What's the damage to your wallet? Expect S$18-25 ($13-18 USD) per cocktail, reasonable given world-class quality. How many bars can you visit? Most of the top bars cluster in two areas, Tanjong Pagar and around the Amara Hotel, so a multi-bar night is easy to plan.

Buenos Aires: Punk Rooms, Immigrant Recipes

Buenos Aires' highest-ranked bar is Tres Monos, No. 21 on the 2026 World's 50 Best Bars list. The bar's name references Japanese sculptures representing seeing, hearing, and speaking no evil—here interpreted as bartenders focusing exclusively on guests without distraction. The room is pure punk, all neon and graffiti, but the technique behind the bar is as serious as any in Europe or North America. Quarterly rotating menus feature drinks like La Uatfak blending house-made Tres Monos gin with apple, pear, sandalwood, and lemon verbena.

Florería Atlántico represents Argentina's immigrant history, hidden beneath a flower shop and accessed through a refrigerator door. Founder Tato Giovannoni's menu celebrates the waves of immigration that shaped Buenos Aires: American bartenders brought cocktail knowledge, the English and Dutch introduced gin and genever, Italians contributed vermouth and amaro. Each cocktail honors these influences while incorporating indigenous Argentine ingredients. The bar's Human Geography menu, created with historian Felipe Pigna, reaches further back to prehistoric South American populations through native ingredients and ancestral techniques like grinding, smoking, and fermentation.

Do you need reservations for Buenos Aires cocktail bars?

Tres Monos is mostly walk-in, though calling ahead on weekends helps. Florería Atlántico is walk-in too: show up, head down the stairs and hope there's room.

How expensive is it? Cocktails cost roughly 14,000-20,000 Argentine pesos, making Buenos Aires significantly more affordable than New York or London for equivalent quality.

What else is nearby? The Palermo neighborhood contains Tres Monos, CoChinChina, and several other notable bars within walking distance, while Florería Atlántico sits on its own in Retiro and is worth the separate trip.

Plan Your Next Cocktail Adventure with Miimu

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