The list represents the ultimate guide to the top bars and drinking destinations around the globe, with restaurant bars, speakeasies, hotel bars, and tiki themed venues all contributing to the diverse and eclectic list. This year’s ranking includes bars from 27 cities in 19 countries, with 14 new entries.
Launched in 2011, the Baxter Inn is the brainchild of Anton Forte and Jason Scott. The Sydney bar holds a whiskey library of over 630 rare and unusual bottles and serves old fashioneds on tap to a regular crowd of Sydneyites and cocktail pilgrims. This year The Baxter Inn climbs one place to equal the highest ever place of an Australian bar in the World’s 50 Best Bars.
Also in Sydney, Tim Phillips’ Bulletin Place at 28 now makes its third appearance in the list showing that its daily changing menu of just five cocktails is still pulling in the crowds. Jumping ahead of its rival, the Everleigh in Melbourne leaps five spots to make it into the top half of the list. The ageless rich mahogany interiors of the bar and recent innovative brewery collaborations have propelled the bar to new heights. Named after a famous high-class brothel run by the Everleigh sisters in Chicago, the bar retains a 1920s feel and serves the world-leading Italian negroni.
The back Pearl in north Melbourne won the prestigious Torres Highest Climber Award as it rose by twenty-seven spots to crash into the top ten for the third time. After a significantly lower listing last year, the fourteen-year-old bar returns stronger and has long been the training ground for some of Australia’s most recognised bartenders, including Bulletin Place’s very own Tim Phillips.
