How to Make the Defining Cocktail From Each of the World’s 5 Best Bars
The World’s 50 Best Bars list has once again unveiled its annual ranking.
Since rolling out in 2009, the list organized by the William Reed business group has amounted to something of a Michelin star for the mixology world. Updated each year with the help of over 700 anonymous industry experts, the rankings shine a light on trendy speakeasies and dimly-lit sanctums alike — even the neighborhood dive bar if their martini is up to snuff. Many of these cocktails are worth traveling the world for. Only some can be made from the comfort of your home.
Today, we’ll narrow in on a single cocktail from 2024’s top five bars, paying special attention to both ingenuity and accessibility. So long as you have a few bottles rattling around your bar cart, you should be able to sample the very best drinks that Singapore, London, Barcelona, Hong Kong and Mexico City have to offer.
5. Summer Soyer – Jigger & Pony, Singapore
(Photo: 50 Best Bars TV/Youtube)
Founded by husband-and-wife team Indra Kantono and Gan Guoyi, Jigger & Pony has crept its way into becoming one of Asia’s most consistently awarded bars of the 2020s. It also bears distinction as the only venue in this year’s top five located inside a hotel — the 5-star Amara Singapore, no less.
If you’re familiar with the bar for one cocktail, it would have to be its eminently photogenic Champagne Ramos Gin Fizz, a layered medley of pastel colors that resembles a slice of Neopolitan ice cream turned on its side. Other fan favorites include its Espresso Martini mixed with an in-house coffee blend and a playful take on the Singapore Sling spruced with rhubarb puree. Suffice it to say that none of these are particularly easy to replicate at home.
Instead, we’ve opted to highlight the Summer Soyer, an easy-going mix of sparkling sake, gin and mango sorbet. Served at the bar for a brief stint in late 2021, the recipe was invented by then-principal bartender Giovanni Graziadei as an homage to the scent of ripe mangos that colored his first impression of Singapore. And a fitting homage he did create.
A small note: Jigger & Pony’s version of the cocktail uses a housemade mango sorbet blended with around 50ml of Roku Gin and three fresh sliced mangos. Graziadei says the alcohol content helps to create smaller, smoother crystals that retain the texture of mango in creamy form. If you feel like going above and beyond, a blender is the way to go — otherwise, use a premade mango sorbet of your choice.
Ingredients
- 100 ml Sparkling Sake
- 20 ml Roku Gin
- Scoop of Mango Sorbet
- Pandan leaf, for garnish
Directions
- Place one scoop of mango sorbet into a coupette
- Add gin and top with sparkling sake, garnish with a round-cut pandan leaf.
4. One Sip Martini – Tayēr + Elementary, London
(Photo: tayer_elementary/Instagram)
Tayēr + Elementary co-founder Monica Berg once remarked to Liquor.com: “Would your mother understand this drink? If the answer is no, you have to rethink it.”
Whether or not that ethos is on display at the bar’s London hideaway is up for debate. On the one hand, you’ll find straightforward recipes like the Cedarwood Old Fashioned and the Palo Santo Gimelet, both examples of the menu’s affinity for a smoky twist. On the other end of the spectrum lies the hoity-toity stuff: the Coconut Whey Sour, Tomato Negroni and everything savory in between. Were we to add anything to Berg’s rule of thumb, we’d say that moms come in both adventurous and traditional-minded varieties.
Thus we find the simplicity of the One Sip Martini. Compressing the endlessly retinkered cocktail into bite-sized form, the recipe opts for a sweet touch with the addition of amber vermouth and a splash of sherry. The centerpiece is an enormous olive (at least, compared to its tiny glass) stuffed to the brim with gorgonzola. Consumed in a single swig, the cocktail resembles an appetizer, entree and dessert wrapped into one. Wonderful stuff, and very easily pre-batched.
Ingredients
- 1 oz Vodka
- 1/2 oz Amber Vermouth
- 1 tsp Fino Sherry, preferably Una Palma
- Olive stuffed with Gorgonzola, for garnish
Directions
- Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass over ice and stir chilled
- Strain into a veladora mezcal glass
- Garnish with olive and enjoy!
3. Krypta – Sips, Barcelona
(Photo: Sips, Barcelona)
Sips, No.1 on The World’s 50 Best Bars list of 2023, is an indulgent celebration of all things storytelling and gastromixology. Certainly, the first thing you’ll notice is the glassware, or as is often the case, the lack thereof. One of the bar’s most iconic drinks resembles a steaming cauldron bursting with comically oversized bubbles. Another concoction — mixed with whisky, port and pear — is served inside a set of golden hands clasped together in prayer to the cocktail gods.
The recipes are similarly on-point, highlighting all manner of spherification, jellies, creams and milk washing. If you can sneak a reservation at the snug 14-seat bar, you’ll be invited to taste just about everything. Founders Simone Caporale and Marc Alvarez envision it as a “prêt-à-porter format” in which drinks are served like Spanish tapas, amounting to a quantity and quality approach rarely replicated by the $30-plus price tags of bars in this echelon.
Few cocktails reflect Sips’ overall vibe better than the Krypta. First, you’ve got the glass; an oval-shaped “olfactive chamber” with small holes designed to nestle sprigs of tarragon, bay leaf and thyme. These are added for aroma and aroma alone, so no worries if your olfactive kitchenware is any way lacking. The drink contained within hinges on the unexpected trio of gin, brandy and clarified kiwi.
If you’re thinking about making this at home, find our full guide on clarification here. We promise it’s a lot easier than it sounds.
Ingredients
- 35 ml Gin
- 45 ml Clarified Kiwi
- 15 ml Brandy Fundador Sherry Cask
- 5 ml Simple Syrup
- 2.5 ml Citric Acid
Directions
- Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice
- Stir with a swizzle for 10 seconds and double-strain into a glass
2. Caffe Paradiso — Bar Leone, Hong Kong
(Photo: Bar Leone/Instagram)
Bar Leone exudes a laid-back ambiance drenched in the aesthetics of an Italian neighborhood hangout. Thin slices of mortadella are served beneath vintage movie posters; flickering candles illuminate a black-and-white tiled floor; cocktails wield names like the “God Father 2” and the “Marsellus Wallace.” That the bar so happens to be situated in Hong Kong adds to the mystique of a bar both out of its era and out of its locale.
Perhaps the coziest touch of all is that Bar Leone publishes all of its cocktail recipes online. No strings attached. We can’t overstate how rare that is for a bar in the world’s top 50, let alone a newcomer that opened in 2023 and immediately rose to the second-highest spot.
Lorenzo Antinori, an alum of the Dandelyan in London and the Charles H. in Seoul, oversees a no-frills mixology menu that allows the cocktails to speak for themselves. The aforementioned God Father 2? A tequila and whisky Old-Fashioned dosed with almond. The Marsellus Wallace? A Corpse Reviver with a “Mexican accent.”
Our drink of choice would be the Caffe Paradiso, a bold and punchy affair that combines cold brew, two types of herbal liqueur, sweet vermouth and honey. Compared to the stripped-down likes of today’s trendiest coffee cocktails, this one packs a wallop of flavor that soars above and beyond its caffeinated roots.
Ingredients
- 45 ml Amaro Lucano
- 60 ml Cold Brew Coffee
- 10 ml Sweet Vermouth
- 5 ml Honey
- 2.5 ml DOM Benedictine
1. Matcha Yuzu – Handshake Speakeasy, Mexico City
(Photo: handshake_bar/Instagram)
Whether hidden behind a freezer door or stowed at the back of a barbershop, the speakeasy concept has taken the craft cocktail scene by storm over the past few years. Mexico City’s Handshake Speakeasy, located behind a thick black door bearing an ominous “13,” embraces its name in stride.
Everything is as mysterious as it is highly technical. The hours-long process behind the Mex-Thai, detailed by Punch Drink, involves beakers and pipettes used to cook up a clarified tomato cordial and makrut lime distillate. Its Old Fashioned uses a stewed mixture of mushrooms, butter and maple. The Banana Split, a blend of rums and sherries topped with a chocolate Lego block. Many of these processes are elaborated upon via Instagram, where viewers get a behind-the-scenes look at the bar’s literal laboratory.
The exact proportions for any of these recipes, however, are impossible to find. So we had to get a little creative. In search of the bar’s elusive Matcha Yuzu, we stumbled upon two recreations of the cocktail — one from TikToker Moresavorygoods and the other from Reddit user u/teded32 over on the site’s mixology forum. Both are excellent in their own right, though we’ve decided to opt for the latter rendition if only because it uses a smidge more of that titular yuzu.
Ingredients
- 750 ml Suntory Tori Whiskey
- 106 ml Hikari Shokuhin Yuzu Juice
- 106 ml Lemon Juice
- 280 ml Vanilla Simple Syrup
- 18.75 ml Matcha Green Tea powder
- 857 ml Whole Milk, for clarification
Directions
- Mix Suntory Toki Whiskey, Hikari Shokuhin Yuzu Juice, Lemon Juice, Vanilla Simple Syrup, and Matcha Green Tea Powder in a large container
- Slowly add Whole Milk to the mixture, let it curdle and sit a few hours
- Strain the mixture through a cheesecloth or coffee filter to remove solids
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