Gin ranking
From a fifteen-metre gin tower in Singapore to a working still in an Edinburgh basement and a two-thousand-bottle collection on a mid-Atlantic island, these are the rooms that treat gin as their whole reason for being. Ranked by the barsforKings editors, with a full note on why each one earns its place.
First published June 14, 2025 · Last updated July 14, 2026 · Reviewed by the barsforKings editorial team
A great gin bar is not simply a bar that stocks gin. It is a room built around the spirit: a deep, curated collection, bartenders who can match a gin to a tonic and a garnish, and a genuine point of view about juniper, botanicals and the perfect serve. The bars below are the specialists, the ones that live and breathe gin rather than keeping a few bottles behind the counter. We chose them for depth of selection, expertise, atmosphere and influence, cross-checked against each bar's own record and the wider industry. The top five are ordered by conviction; the rest are listed alphabetically, because once you reach this altitude the differences are matters of mood and city rather than merit. Every bar here is one we would send a gin lover to without hesitation. Where a claim could not be verified, we left it out.
The podium - positions 1 to 5
The five gin bars we would cross an ocean for. Each has a deep collection, a distinct point of view, and a claim to being the finest specialist in its part of the world.
No bar has done more to make gin feel like grand theatre. Atlas occupies the soaring Art Deco lobby of Parkview Square, the Singapore office tower locals nicknamed the Gotham building for its brooding, comic-book silhouette, and at its centre stands a bronze gin tower that climbs toward the fifteen-metre ceiling. Bartenders reach the upper shelves by a golden staircase, a landing and a ladder, drawing on a collection that most sources put well past a thousand labels, with vintage bottles reaching back to the early 1900s. It opened in 2017 and rose fast: Highest New Entry on the World's 50 Best Bars that year, Best Bar in Asia in 2019, a global peak of No. 4 in 2020, then the Legend of the List and Best Bar Design honours at Asia's 50 Best in 2024. What keeps it at No. 1 for us is that the spectacle never outruns the drink. The Atlas Martini, built on the house London Dry, is a lesson in restraint, and the service carries the polish of a grand European hotel.
What to order: the Atlas Martini, then a glass from the champagne room. · Read the full Atlas review →
When Holborn Dining Room opened its Gin Bar inside Rosewood London in 2016, it arrived with a claim that made headlines: the largest gin collection in the capital. The copper-topped counter launched with more than four hundred gins and twenty-seven tonics, a combination the bar worked out to more than fourteen thousand possible pairings, and the collection has stayed in the hundreds ever since. What raises it to No. 2 is the seriousness beneath the spectacle. Every gin is matched to a specific tonic and a considered garnish, so a simple order becomes a small piece of theatre, all citrus oils and fresh herbs. The bar keeps its own limited London Dry, distilled in Cornwall with Tarquin's and hand-foraged rock samphire, and the classic list runs through the Aviation, the Martinez and the Vesper with real expertise. Set within one of London's handsomest brasseries, it is the definitive argument for gin as a hotel-bar discipline.
What to order: a bespoke gin and tonic, chosen for you by style. · Read the full Gin Bar review →
Gin Palace is the bar that helped invent Melbourne's laneway drinking culture. Vernon Chalker revived the old Gin Palace name in 1997, in a sunken Russell Place basement, at a time when only a handful of gins could be found in the whole country and he had to import stock himself. More than twenty-five years on it holds one of the largest gin selections in the Southern Hemisphere, reported at more than three hundred and thirty labels, in a room of velvet, low light and plush lounges that feels closer to 1890s Budapest than modern Melbourne. Its signature is a ninety-millilitre Martini given its own page on the menu, backed by a famous toasted chicken sandwich served until close. Time Out handed it a Legend Award in 2016 for nearly two decades of gin-fuelled nights, and a careful 2024 refit under owner Ben Luzz preserved the mood entirely. We rank it third as the bar that made gin a way of life for a whole city.
What to order: the ninety-millilitre Martini, then the toasted chicken sandwich. · Read the full Gin Palace review →
Walk into a working barbershop on York Street, past the vintage chairs and the whisky cabinet, slide open a heavy steel door, and you arrive in one of the finest gin bars in the world. The Barber Shop opened in 2013 and now pours from more than seven hundred gins, a collection that has earned it, in the trade's own words, the title of Australia's Best Gin Bar for several consecutive years. Mike Enright and his partners built it as two honest businesses sharing one address: real haircuts by day, serious drinking by night, with none of the coy speakeasy posturing. The room is all British racing green walls, exposed ducts and navy leather, and the gin flights let you travel four distillates at a time. Named serves like the Smoke and Bandages, built on Bombay dry gin and smoked rosemary, show kitchen-grade attention to detail, and the tableside Martini service offers a choice of more than twenty tinctures. We rank it fourth as the most complete gin bar in the Southern Hemisphere's other great drinking city.
What to order: a gin flight, then the Smoke and Bandages. · Read the full Barber Shop review →
Barcelona reinvented the gin and tonic in the early 2000s, turning it into a balloon-glass ritual of dense ice, matched tonic and botanical garnish, and Bobby Gin is where that craft found its temple. Opened in 2011 by Alberto Pizarro, who took the Spanish World Class bartending title that same year, it was the first cocktail bar in the city dedicated to gin, tucked into the neighbourhood streets of Gràcia. The selection has grown from dozens to a couple of hundred references, but the point was never the count. Order here and you are asked about flavour first, citrus or floral or Mediterranean, and the bartender builds a glass in which gin, tonic and garnish work as one rather than as decoration. Pizarro's house creations, the bottled Ginfonks among them, show a restless inventiveness, and the small, dimly lit room rewards a slow evening. We rank it fifth as the bar that codified how the world's most gin-obsessed city drinks.
What to order: a gin and tonic built to your flavour profile. · Read the full Bobby Gin review →
The specialists - positions 6 to 23, alphabetical
Beyond the podium, ranking becomes splitting hairs. These eighteen bars are listed alphabetically; every one is a genuine gin destination in its own right.
Push through a working coffee shop on Ninth Avenue, give the doorman a nod, and an unmarked door opens onto one of Manhattan's most enduring gin dens. Bathtub Gin opened in Chelsea in 2011 and built its whole identity around the spirit that Prohibition drinkers once brewed at home, right down to the freestanding copper tub that sits in the middle of the room. Behind the damask wallpaper, pressed-tin ceilings and silk couches is a genuinely gin-forward bar: the cocktails lean hard on the botanical, and the gin and tonic list ranges across distillates from Africa, Japan, Greece and beyond. Live music and burlesque keep the 1920s fantasy alive without tipping into kitsch. We include it because it is the American speakeasy that took gin most literally and has kept the theme honest for well over a decade, a reliably fun night that still respects what is in the glass.
What to order: a gin and tonic from the global list, or a botanical-heavy house cocktail. · See Bathtub Gin →
When the City of London Distillery opened in 2012, it was the first gin distillery to operate inside the Square Mile in nearly two hundred years, and its C.O.L.D. Bar lets you drink within sight of the copper stills. That is the appeal: this is gin at the source, a working distillery where a tour can end with a gin and tonic and a tasting flight, and where the bar pours the house range bottled under a glass dome shaped like the dome of St Paul's. The team runs regular gin experiences and gin-making classes, so a visit can be as educational as it is convivial. It is a smaller, more intimate proposition than London's grand hotel gin bars, but for anyone who wants to understand how the spirit is actually made, it is unmatched in the centre of town. We rank it here as London's definitive distillery bar, a place where heritage is not a theme but a licence.
What to order: the house London Dry, neat, then as a classic gin and tonic. · More bars in London →
The Distillery is a gin lover's building rather than merely a bar: four floors on Portobello Road that house a working still, the Ginstitute gin museum and masterclass, guest rooms, and two bars, including the ground-floor GinTonica that pours in the Spanish balloon-glass style. This is the home of Portobello Road Gin, and a day here can run from distilling your own bottle upstairs to drinking a properly built gin and tonic below, all in the heart of Notting Hill. Alongside the house spirits sit around a hundred other gins chosen from around the world, so the range rewards both the curious beginner and the collector. What sets it apart is the sense of total immersion: few places let you sleep above the still that made your nightcap. We rank it here as London's most complete gin destination, an institution that treats the spirit as a craft, a history and a hospitality all at once.
What to order: a GinTonica built with Portobello Road Gin. · See The Distillery →
To reach The Gin Bar you walk through Honest Chocolate on Wale Street, past the counter and out into a candlelit courtyard that smells of rosemary and wax, a hidden turn that earned it the nickname of Cape Town's secret gin bar. It is a small, romantic space with an outsized commitment to South African gin: of its roughly hundred and twenty bottles, more than eighty are distilled in the country, making it one of the best places anywhere to taste the Cape's remarkable craft-gin boom. The cocktail list is deliberately tiny, five drinks named for states of mind, each built to show the botanical range of local spirits. We rank it here because it does something no bigger bar can: it turns a national gin renaissance into an intimate, almost secretive experience, and it champions distillers who deserve a far wider audience.
What to order: one of the five house cocktails, then a South African gin and tonic. · See The Gin Bar →
Berlin is not the first city that comes to mind for gin, which is exactly why Gin Chilla matters. This Friedrichshain bar has quietly built one of the largest gin selections in Germany, with hundreds of bottles lining the shelves and a second, more exclusive room for rarer pours. The mood is unmistakably Berlin: unpretentious, warm and knowledgeable rather than plush, a place where the bartenders would rather talk you through an obscure distillate than dazzle you with theatre. The gin and tonic is treated with care, the tonic matched to the spirit, and the range is deep enough that regulars can keep exploring for months. We include it because it proves the specialist gin bar is a global idea now, not the preserve of London and the Mediterranean, and because few rooms anywhere reward a curious drinker with this much choice for the money.
What to order: ask the bar for a gin you have never heard of, served as a proper gin and tonic. · More bars in Berlin →
Italy came late to gin obsession, and The Gin Corner, inside Hotel Adriano near Piazza Navona, was the bar that opened the door: the first in the country dedicated entirely to the spirit. It holds Rome's largest gin collection, well over a hundred and twenty labels, and treats the gin and tonic and the Martini as the serious drinks they are, in a handsome, low-key room that suits the historic centre. In a city built on wine and the aperitivo, that focus felt almost radical when it arrived, and it has since helped spread gin culture across Italy. We rank it here because pioneering a category takes conviction, and The Gin Corner has kept its standards high long after the novelty wore off. It is the natural first stop for any gin drinker in Rome, a calm counterpoint to the crowds outside.
What to order: a Martini, or a gin and tonic matched to your taste by the bar. · More bars in Rome →
On a small island in the middle of the Atlantic sits what may be the largest gin collection on earth. The Gin Library, opened in 2019 by the British collector Ali Bullock at a hotel on São Miguel in the Azores, passed its two-thousandth bottle in recent years, with gins drawn from more than seventy countries and every continent except Antarctica. It is less a conventional bar than a destination for pilgrims, a curated experience where tastings and masterclasses guide you through a collection no city bar could rival. Getting there takes real effort, which is part of the romance: this is gin as an obsession followed to its logical, gloriously remote conclusion. We include it because a worldwide ranking of gin has to acknowledge the single deepest collection anyone has assembled for the public, and because Bullock's evangelism has done as much as any bar to celebrate the sheer breadth of what gin can be.
What to order: a guided flight through gins you will not find anywhere else.
Gin Lovers occupies the ground floor of Embaixada, a neo-Moorish palace from the eighteen-hundreds in Lisbon's fashionable Príncipe Real, and it wears its name plainly: this is a space given over entirely to gin. The bar carries dozens of gin brands, with staff who genuinely know their botanicals and will build a custom drink around whatever you like, and the setting, all natural light, tiled arches and a calm terrace, is among the loveliest in the city. Pairings with contemporary Portuguese cooking turn a simple gin and tonic into something closer to a meal, and on Sunday evenings live fado drifts through the room. We include it because it captures Lisbon's easy glamour while taking the spirit seriously, a rare combination of atmosphere and expertise. In a city that has become one of Europe's most enjoyable to drink in, this is the address for gin.
What to order: a gin and tonic paired to a Portuguese small plate. · More bars in Lisbon →
Not to be confused with its Melbourne namesake, The Gin Palace on Middle Abbey Street is the original place to drink gin in Dublin, and it holds the largest gin selection in Ireland, with bottles gathered from every corner of the globe. It arrived as Irish gin was beginning its own remarkable revival, and it has championed the country's distillers alongside the international greats, all served by staff who clearly relish the subject. The room has the warm, unfussy feel of a proper Dublin bar rather than a design statement, which is part of its charm, and it was crowned Gin Bar of the Year in 2015. We rank it here because it anchors a national gin scene that has grown enormously, and because it does the fundamentals, choice, knowledge and hospitality, with genuine Irish warmth. For anyone tracing gin through Ireland, this is the essential first stop.
What to order: an Irish gin and tonic, chosen with the bar's help. · More bars in Dublin →
The Gin Room, above Café Natasha on South Grand, is the work of Natasha Bahrami, a woman so devoted to the spirit that she is known as the Gin Girl and, in 2021, became the only American inducted into the Gin Hall of Fame. Her bar holds more than three hundred gins and treats them as a subject to be taught: flights, seminars, classes and an annual gin festival all radiate from this one room in the American Midwest. That educational mission is what sets it apart. This is not a place trading on decor or secrecy but on genuine expertise, and it earned a James Beard nomination for outstanding bar in 2023. We rank it here because it proves world-class gin culture can flourish far from the coasts and the capitals, and because few people anywhere have done more to explain and evangelise the spirit.
What to order: a flight chosen to walk you through gin styles, then a Martini. · More bars in St Louis →
Down in the basement of the Rutland Hotel, near Edinburgh's West End, Heads and Tales is a gin bar with a working distillery in the room: two copper stills named Flora and Caledonia produce the local 56 North gin a few feet from where you drink it. That proximity is the whole point, a speakeasy-style space where the spirit is not just poured but made, backed by an extensive gin list and a serious cocktail programme. Opened in 2014, it rode the crest of Scotland's gin boom and remains one of the best places in a gin-mad city to understand the craft first-hand. We rank it here because the combination of a genuine still and a well-run bar is rare, and because Edinburgh, now one of the great gin capitals, deserves representation at this level. It is atmospheric without being precious, and expert without being stuffy.
What to order: a 56 North gin and tonic, or a cocktail built on the house spirit. · See Heads and Tales →
The Jolly Botanist brings a second Edinburgh entry to this list, and earns it: a Victorian-styled specialist gin bar on Morrison Street in the West End, opened in 2015 with a collection that has grown past a hundred gins. The interior leans into apothecary charm, all dark wood and botanical detail, and the kitchen turns out proper food to go with the drinking, so it works as easily for dinner as for a late gin and tonic. What we like is the balance: it takes gin seriously enough to keep a deep, well-chosen list, but it never forgets to be a welcoming neighbourhood bar. In a city with no shortage of gin, it has built a devoted following by getting the fundamentals right, warm service, a distinctive room and a genuine love of the spirit. We include it as proof that Edinburgh's gin culture runs deep enough to sustain more than one great specialist.
What to order: a gin and tonic with the garnish of your choice. · More bars in Edinburgh →
Macera, between Malasaña and Chueca, takes a different approach from every other bar on this list: it makes its own gin on site. The name means to macerate, and that is exactly what happens here, spirits infused in-house with fresh fruit, herbs and spices, so the gin in your glass may have been steeping with rosemary and thyme in the corner of the room. The result is a menu of around twenty house-made spirits and some of the best gin and tonics in Madrid, served in an industrial-feeling workshop of a bar at prices that stay refreshingly reasonable. Macera also runs classes so you can learn to macerate at home. We include it because it represents the creative, hands-on edge of gin culture, a bar that does not just curate the spirit but produces it, and because it captures the energy of Madrid's drinking scene without the theatre or the markup.
What to order: a house-macerated gin and tonic. · More bars in Madrid →
Hidden down a City of London alley off Bow Lane, Merchant House is a basement bar built around the trade routes of the British Empire, and it holds one of the largest collections of gin and rum in the world, with well over three hundred gins alone. The theme is done with real conviction: the two spirits that sailed on merchant ships are treated as the heroes, and the bartenders can navigate the vast back bar with genuine expertise, steering you toward bottles you would never find yourself. It is intimate, a little clandestine, and exactly the kind of place the City does well, a refuge from the surrounding offices with a serious drink in hand. We rank it here because sheer depth of selection, matched to knowledgeable service, is its own achievement, and Merchant House has both in abundance. For a gin drinker who wants to explore, few London back bars go deeper.
What to order: ask the bar to pick a gin you have never tried, served long. · See Merchant House →
Part of the whimsical Mr Fogg's family of Victorian-adventurer bars, the Gin Parlour in Covent Garden turns gin into a piece of theatre, a lace-and-taxidermy salon inspired by Jules Verne's globe-trotting hero. Behind the eccentric decor sits a serious offer: over a hundred and fifty gins, catalogued in the bar's own Encyclopedia Gintonica with suggested garnishes and tasting flights arranged by flavour, so the fantasy never gets in the way of a well-made drink. Afternoon gin teas and tableside flourishes make it one of the most purely enjoyable gin experiences in central London. We include it because it understands that gin can be fun without being frivolous, and because the range and the guidance genuinely reward exploration beneath the costume-drama surface. In a part of London thick with tourists, it manages to be both a spectacle and a properly good bar.
What to order: a gin and tonic matched to a flavour flight from the Encyclopedia Gintonica. · See Mr Fogg's Gin Parlour →
Scofflaw put gin at the centre of the American cocktail bar when few others would, and Chicago has loved it for that since 2012. This Logan Square room keeps more than a hundred gins on the back bar, including its own Old Tom made with a local distillery, and builds a menu of gin-forward drinks that GQ once called the best gin joint in the world. The charm is in the contrast: a baroque, salon-like space that still feels like a neighbourhood bar, with a fireplace, a patio, a great smashburger and free chocolate-chip cookies at midnight. We rank it here because it made gin cool in a whiskey-and-beer town and never lost its warmth, a serious cocktail bar that refuses to take itself too seriously. For anyone who thinks gin bars have to be plush or hidden, Scofflaw is the joyful counter-argument.
What to order: a gin-forward house cocktail, then a cookie at midnight. · See Scofflaw →
Gin was born from jenever, the Dutch spirit, and there is no better place to drink it than Wynand Fockink, a tasting house on a narrow alley off Dam Square that has been in business since 1679. Step inside and the seventeenth century closes around you: black beams, Delft-blue tiles, oak casks and no bar stools, just a standing room where you lean in to sip a glass filled to the very rim. Around seventy jenevers and liqueurs are still produced under the name, and the ritual of the first sip, bending to the glass rather than lifting it, connects you directly to gin's ancestry. We include it because any serious survey of gin has to honour where the spirit came from, and because few drinking experiences anywhere are this old, this authentic or this quietly moving. It is a living museum that happens to serve extraordinary spirits.
What to order: an oude jenever, sipped the traditional way. · See Wynand Fockink →
Xixbar, set inside a nineteen-hundred dairy in Poble Sec with its original ceramic tiling still on the walls, is the other pillar of Barcelona's gin story, a bar that helped turn the gin and tonic into the city's signature drink before the craze went global. Alongside its cocktails it runs an attached gin shop stocked with international bottles that never reach normal distribution, so it functions as both a bar and a treasure house for the seriously curious. The room has real character, historic and a little bohemian, and the drinks follow the strict Barcelona protocol of balloon glass, hard ice and tonic chosen for the gin. We rank it here because, together with Bobby Gin, it defined how a whole city came to drink gin, and because its combination of a great bar and a specialist shop is genuinely unusual. For any gin pilgrim in Barcelona, it is essential.
What to order: a Barcelona-style gin and tonic, then browse the shop. · More bars in Barcelona →