The 25 Best Rum Bars in the World

From the 1,400-bottle back bar of Smuggler's Cove to the daiquiri's birthplace in Havana: the specialist rum rooms worth crossing a border for, ranked and explained.

Curated by the barsforKings editorial team · Updated July 2026 · How we rank

Rum is the most misunderstood spirit behind the bar. Spring-break sweet in the popular imagination, it is quietly the most varied category in the world, spanning bone-dry agricultural rhums, funky Jamaican pot stills, aged sipping expressions and the tropical cocktails that built the tiki canon.

The bars below are the rooms that take it seriously. To make this ranking, a venue had to do more than pour a decent Mai Tai: it needed a genuine rum specialism, meaning a back bar built around the cane spirit, a drinks list that treats rum as the hero rather than an ingredient, and a track record recognised by the wider industry through awards, press or sheer longevity. We weighted depth and rarity of the rum selection, the credibility of the people behind the bar, contribution to rum and tiki culture, and how reliably the place delivers today. Landmarks that shaped the entire category, like Havana's daiquiri and mojito cradles, sit alongside modern temples assembling two thousand bottles. Every claim here is drawn from public sources; we do not invent ratings. Here are the 25 best rum bars on earth.

01
Smuggler's Cove

San Francisco, USA · Full review ›

No bar has done more to drag rum from spring-break afterthought to connoisseur's spirit than Smuggler's Cove. When Martin and Rebecca Cate opened this three-level Hayes Valley grotto in 2009 they stocked around 200 rums; today the shelves hold more than 1,400 at any moment, with over 2,800 bottles having passed through since opening, the largest rum selection in North America. The roughly 80-cocktail menu is a drinkable history of the cane spirit, running from colonial-tavern grogs and Prohibition-era Havana daiquiris through the golden age of tiki to contemporary rum libations. The room, a dim warren of nautical salvage, carved tiki and a working waterfall between floors, is a pilgrimage site, and serious drinkers enrol in its Rumbustion Society to work through hundreds of pours toward tasting honours. The industry has ratified all of it: six consecutive years on Drinks International's World's 50 Best Bars, a 2016 Spirited Award for Best American Cocktail Bar, and a James Beard Award for the Cates' definitive book. It is, simply, the reference standard.
02
Trailer Happiness

London, UK · Full review ›

If Smuggler's Cove is rum's American cathedral, Trailer Happiness is its London embassy. Opened in November 2003 by serial bar entrepreneur Jonathan Downey, the man behind Match and Milk & Honey, this tiny Portobello Road basement became the crucible of the early-2000s tiki revival in Britain, a "retro-sexual haven of cosmopolitan kitsch and faded trailer-park glamour" that made rum cool again when the category was deeply unfashionable. Since 2012 it has been owned and run by Notting Hill native Sly Augustin, who has turned it into one of the most respected rum programmes in Europe, keeping between 180 and 200 worthwhile rums on the back bar at any time and a cocktail list that swings from precise daiquiris to full-throttle tiki. Drinks International has called it an "embassy for rum," and it appears on the World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list. Two decades on, it remains the room every visiting bartender wants to drink in: small, warm, unpretentious and utterly serious about the spirit. A genuine institution.
03
Baba au Rum

Athens, Greece · Full review ›

Baba au Rum is the most decorated rum bar on this list, and with reason. Opened in central Athens in 2009 by Thanos Prunarus, a founder who learned the trade in London before returning home, it describes itself as a "rum and cocktail society," and the description is earned by a back bar of more than 400 rums spanning agricultural rhums from Martinique and Guadeloupe, aged Jamaican and Barbadian expressions, funky pot-still productions and a tier of vintage bottles collectors travel specifically to drink. The result is one of the most comprehensively stocked rum programmes anywhere in Europe, paired with a menu that moves between classic tropical references and modern, ingredient-driven builds. The recognition is remarkable for a room this size: appearances on The World's 50 Best Bars for well over a decade, ranked No. 27 in 2025, plus the Rémy Martin Legend of the List Award. Prunarus also founded Greece's Rum & Whisky festival, cementing his role as the country's rum evangelist. Proof that world-class rum culture isn't confined to London or the tropics.
04
La Factoria

San Juan, Puerto Rico · Full review ›

On a corner in Old San Juan, in the heart of the island that gave the world Bacardi and Don Q, La Factoria has become the most celebrated bar in the Caribbean. Behind an unmarked door on Calle San Sebastián, it unfolds as a labyrinth of connected rooms: the main El Facto bar giving way to a wine room, a hidden salon, a Cuban-inspired counter and a dance floor, each with its own mood. What ties it together is a command of rum drinks rooted in Puerto Rican sensibilities, championed by co-founder Roberto Berdecia; the milk-clarified Guanabana Punch, built on soursop-infused rum and chai, is the signature the world copies. The accolades are serious: multiple years on The World's 50 Best Bars and a run atop North America's 50 Best Bars, where it has been named the best bar in the Caribbean. For anyone wanting to drink rum where rum is a birthright, in a room that fuses that heritage with genuine cocktail sophistication, this is the destination. Few bars anywhere balance place and craft so completely.
05
Rumba

Seattle, USA · Full review ›

Seattle's first dedicated rum bar remains one of the most complete rum experiences in the United States. Opened in 2012 on Pike Street by restaurateur Travis Rosenthal, Rumba lines a twelve-foot arched back bar with a collection that has grown into the hundreds of sugarcane spirits, widely cited at 400-plus and reported as high as 700, making it a genuine rival to Smuggler's Cove for sheer depth on the West Coast. The bar's calling card is its Rum Map, a guided flight programme that walks drinkers through the major producing regions and styles, from Cuban and Puerto Rican light rums to Jamaican funk, Demerara heaviness and agricole grass; it is one of the best rum educations you can get sitting down, letting you choose 60 rums to explore. The cocktails span Cuban, Caribbean, tiki and classic templates, poured in a candlelit, 1950s-tropical room. For a city better known for coffee and grunge, Rumba is an unlikely and brilliant temple to cane, a bartender's bar with the reference library to match. Come hungry to learn.
06
Cottons Rhum Shack

London, UK · Full review ›

Where Trailer Happiness approaches rum through the tiki lens, Cottons comes at it straight from the Caribbean. London's longest-running Caribbean restaurant brand, trading since 1985, Cottons pairs jerk-smoked island cooking with what is routinely described as the UK's largest rum list; its Notting Hill "Rhum Shack" has been reported holding a Guinness World Record for the largest commercially available rum selection, with several hundred bottles on offer. That breadth is the point: rather than curating tightly, Cottons lets drinkers roam across the entire rum-producing world, from Jamaican overproofs to Haitian clairin and rare aged Demeraras, guided by staff steeped in the culture. The cocktail programme leans into rum punches, daiquiris and the group's own spiced blends, and the atmosphere of reggae, spice and warmth across branches in Notting Hill, Camden, Vauxhall and Shoreditch is closer to a Kingston rum shop than a hushed cocktail den. For range alone it earns its place, but it is the unbroken four-decade commitment to Caribbean rum in London that seals it. Few places make rum feel this joyful.
07
Beachbum Berry's Latitude 29

New Orleans, USA · Full review ›

No single person has done more to recover the lost recipes of the tiki era than Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, and Latitude 29 is where his decades of detective work are poured into glasses. Opened in 2014 inside the French Quarter's Bienville House hotel, the bar is the physical home of the research Berry published in books like Sippin' Safari: reconstructed Zombies, Mai Tais and Navy Grogs made to the exact specifications of mid-century originals that had been deliberately kept secret by their creators. That scholarship makes Latitude 29 more than a pretty tropical room; it is a working archive of rum's golden age, where the ratios and forgotten ingredients are treated with genuine historical rigour. The rum-forward list runs deep across styles, the food nods to Pacific and Creole flavours, and the décor balances immersive escapism with real craft. It appears on the World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list and is regularly named among America's best tiki bars. For drinkers who care where these cocktails actually came from, this is the source.
08
Three Dots and a Dash

Chicago, USA · Full review ›

Reached through a lantern-lit alley in River North, Three Dots and a Dash has been Chicago's flagship rum-and-tiki destination since 2013, and one of the most influential exotic-cocktail bars in America. Named after the Don the Beachcomber classic (itself Morse code for "V," for victory), it backs its theatrical, skull-mug-and-fire presentation with a rum programme of real seriousness: one of the deepest cane-spirit selections in the Midwest, plus a dedicated upstairs Bamboo Room for rare pours and tasting flights that reward drinkers who want to go beyond the flaming group bowls. The cocktails, developed within a lineage that has included some of the country's most respected tiki bartenders, range from the crowd-pleasing namesake to precise, spirit-forward builds that hold up against any craft cocktail bar in the city. It features on the World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list and has become a template copied nationwide. Fun and rigour rarely coexist this well; Three Dots delivers both, which is exactly why it endures while so many themed bars fade.
09
The Lobo

Sydney, Australia · Full review ›

Down a stairwell off Clarence Street, The Lobo (formerly The Lobo Plantation) is Sydney's rum headquarters, a 1920s Cuban-themed basement named for Julio Lobo, the "sugar baron" who was once the richest man in pre-revolution Cuba. The theme is more than decoration: Lobo builds its identity around rum, stocking 150-plus bottles from across the Caribbean, Central and South America and beyond, and its bartenders are among the most rum-literate in Australia. The drinks list runs from faithful Havana-era classics such as daiquiris, Cuba Libres and El Presidentes to inventive house creations and shareable punches, served amid rattan, palm and cigar-lounge warmth that makes it one of the city's most atmospheric rooms. It has earned a place on The World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list and a loyal following among Sydney's drinks trade. In a city with a world-class cocktail scene, Lobo stands out by going deep rather than wide, committing wholly to one spirit and one era. For rum in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the essential address, and a reliably excellent night out besides.
10
Cane and Table

New Orleans, USA · Full review ›

Cane and Table calls its approach "proto-tiki," and that phrase captures why it matters. Opened on Decatur Street in 2013 by the team behind New Orleans' celebrated Cure and Bellocq, it was conceived as a rum-centric bar that traces the spirit's story further back than the mid-century tiki bars do, to the rustic punches, grogs and Colonial-era rum drinks that came before Don the Beachcomber ever lit a torch. The candlelit, crumbling-plaster room in the French Quarter feels genuinely old-world, and the menu follows suit: rum and cachaça drinks built on historical templates, sharp house punches and Caribbean-leaning food. That intellectual seriousness about rum's deeper history, executed by one of the most respected bar groups in America, sets it apart from theme-first competitors. It has been widely praised in the national press since opening and remains a fixture of any serious New Orleans drinking itinerary. For drinkers who want rum with a sense of where it truly came from, before the umbrellas, Cane and Table is the thinking person's choice.
11
Aguardiente

Marina di Ravenna, Italy

Tucked into a seaside town on Italy's Adriatic coast, Aguardiente is one of the most astonishing rum collections in Europe, a genuine temple to sugarcane spirits assembled by owner Jimmy Bertazzoli. The back bar holds more than 2,200 bottles, a figure that dwarfs almost every rum bar on this list and turns a visit into something closer to a library session than an ordinary drink. That depth spans the full spectrum of cane spirit: rhum agricole, aged Caribbean sippers, rare vintage bottlings and the funkier extremes of Jamaican and Haitian production. Bertazzoli channels it into a menu of around two dozen rum cocktails, twists on the classics alongside traditional Caribbean and South American drinks, served to a jazz soundtrack in an intimate, unhurried room. It appears on The World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list, remarkable for a bar well off the usual metropolitan circuit. Aguardiente is the destination that proves rum obsession recognises no borders: drinkers make the pilgrimage to this small Emilia-Romagna resort purely for what sits behind the bar. An improbable, unmissable rum cathedral.
12
Hale Pele

Portland, USA

Named for the Hawaiian volcano goddess, Hale Pele has been Portland's premier tiki and rum bar since it opened in 2012 under Blair Reynolds, the man behind the B.G. Reynolds line of tiki syrups, which supplies bars across the country. That pedigree shows in the drinks: Hale Pele treats classic exotic cocktails with the same exacting standards a craft cocktail bar applies to a Manhattan, and it backs them with a rotating selection of 300 to 400 rums, deep enough to satisfy serious enthusiasts while remaining welcoming to newcomers. The immersive room, all thatch, tikis and the occasional simulated tropical storm complete with thunder and rain effects, leans into escapism without letting the theatre outrun the quality in the glass. It has a devoted regional following and a reputation, well beyond Oregon, as one of the most authentic tiki bars in the Pacific Northwest. For a category that too often coasts on kitsch, Hale Pele's combination of genuine rum depth, house-made ingredients and craft discipline keeps it firmly among the best in the country.
13
Laki Kane

London, UK

Laki Kane is the most hands-on rum experience in London. Opened on Islington's Upper Street in 2018 by Steve Kyprianou and the award-winning bartender Georgi Radev, a former World Tiki Bartender of the Year, it pairs a serious tiki bar upstairs with a downstairs "rum lab," where guests can blend and age their own rum in a genuinely educational session that has become the venue's calling card. Radev built the drinks programme around a distinctive no-added-sugar philosophy, drawing sweetness from fruit reductions rather than syrups, across a back bar that runs well past 200 rums. The result is a room that manages to be both playful and technically rigorous: escapist palm-print theatre over a real commitment to the spirit and to sustainability. It earns strong national press and a place on the London rum map that few tiki bars can rival, precisely because it teaches as much as it serves. For anyone who wants to understand rum by actually making it, not just drinking it, Laki Kane is unmatched in the capital. Book the rum school ahead.
14
Rum Room Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan

Japanese bartenders approach imported spirits with famous obsessiveness, and Rum Room Tokyo channels that precision entirely toward cane. Set in the upscale Moto-Azabu district in a room styled after a wooden ship from the Age of Exploration, it specialises in rum with a collection reported at more than 400 bottles, poured by a team that studies the history and nuance of every single one to guide guests to their ideal glass. Alongside the sipping selection sit more than 40 classic rum cocktails, Mai Tais, Mojitos, Piña Coladas and beyond, executed with the meticulous, hospitality-first technique that defines Tokyo's bar culture. That combination of a deep, carefully curated rum library and world-renowned Japanese craftsmanship makes it one of Asia's essential rum destinations, and the clearest answer to anyone who assumes serious rum drinking is a Caribbean or Western pursuit. In a city celebrated for whisky bars, Rum Room stakes out cane spirit with the same reverence. For the traveller working through Tokyo's legendary bar scene, it is the rum stop that shouldn't be skipped.
15
False Idol

San Diego, USA

False Idol is Martin Cate's West Coast encore, and one of the most spectacular tiki rooms ever built. Opened in San Diego's Little Italy in 2016 behind a hidden door inside the Craft and Commerce restaurant (a collaboration between Cate's Smuggler's Cove team and Consortium Holdings), it channels the same rum-first philosophy that made its San Francisco sibling famous into an even more theatrically immersive space of animatronic effects, carved idols and cascading water. The cocktail list is rum-forward and rigorous, drawing on Cate's exhaustive knowledge of the category and a reserve section of premium and rare bottles for drinkers who want to trade up. Because it shares Smuggler's Cove's DNA, the standards are exacting: correct rums for each classic, house syrups and juices, and a genuine respect for tiki's history rather than its clichés. Reservations are essential and the room is small, which only heightens the sense of occasion. For rum lovers in Southern California, or anyone touring America's great tiki bars, False Idol is a headline stop and arguably the most beautiful room on this entire list.
16
El Floridita

Havana, Cuba

Some bars earn their place through breadth of selection; El Floridita earns it through history that changed how the world drinks rum. A bar has stood on this Old Havana corner since 1817, taking the Floridita name in 1914, and it was here in the early 1930s that head bartender Constantino "Constante" Ribalaigua perfected the frozen daiquiri, crushing ice and balancing rum, lime and sugar into the template every daiquiri since has followed. Ernest Hemingway drank his doubles here so faithfully that a bronze statue of him now leans at the end of the bar, and "my daiquiri in the Floridita" remains one of cocktail history's most quoted lines. Yes, it is busy and tourist-thronged today, and it trades hard on its legend, but the legend is real, and the house daiquiri is still made with genuine care. Recognised on The World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list, El Floridita is less a specialist rum bar than a living monument to the drink that put Cuban rum on the map. No serious rum pilgrimage is complete without it.
17
La Bodeguita del Medio

Havana, Cuba

A few streets from El Floridita, La Bodeguita del Medio is the daiquiri's counterpart in Havana's other great rum myth: the mojito. Founded in 1942 and known by its current name from 1950, this narrow, graffiti-covered bar-restaurant claims to be the birthplace of the mojito, made from rum, lime, sugar, mint and soda, and while the origin is disputed by historians, the association is inseparable from the drink's global fame. The walls are layered with the signatures of decades of visitors, and Hemingway's line "my mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita" is painted up as the house creed. Like its rival it is crowded and unabashedly touristic, with live son cubano and a conveyor line of mojitos, but it remains an authentic piece of rum heritage, the room where a now-ubiquitous cocktail entered the world's imagination. It appears on rum-lover itineraries the world over. Judged as a specialist bar it is thin; judged as a landmark that shaped rum culture, it is irreplaceable, and every drinker should stand at its counter once.
18
UnderTow

Phoenix, USA

Few tiki bars commit to the fantasy as completely as UnderTow, a below-ground Phoenix hideaway designed to recreate the hull of an 1800s clipper ship, portholes "sailing" past and all. Opened in 2016 and now settled inside the Century Grand building in Arcadia, it puts rum firmly at the centre: an extensive menu covering both faithful tiki classics and modern originals, reportedly some 30 house recipes, 14 classics and several large-format drinks, each built on specific, well-chosen rums rather than generic pours. The care shows in the specs; signature builds call for the likes of Worthy Park and Smith and Cross Jamaican rums, Puerto Rican overproofs and rare Barrilito, the kind of detail that signals real rum literacy behind the theatrics. It appears on The World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list and draws drinkers from across the Southwest to a city not otherwise known for its bar scene. The immersive room seats few and reservations are wise, which keeps the experience intimate. For rum-driven tiki done with genuine craft, UnderTow is one of America's most distinctive rooms.
19
Caribbean Club

Barcelona, Spain

Hidden behind an unmarked door near the Boadas cocktail landmark, Caribbean Club is Barcelona's great rum secret, a tiny nautical-themed room that has been pouring rum-based classics since the 1970s. Its lineage runs straight to the heart of Spanish cocktail history: it was opened by Josep Lluís Marruenda of the celebrated Boadas family, who was the first distributor of Havana Club rum in Spain, and it is now kept by Juanjo González Rubiera, who maintains the old-school throwing technique and unhurried service the bar is loved for. The selection runs to around 150 rums, and the drinks, from daiquiris and mojitos to rum classics built with real precision, are among the best in the city. Ship's lanterns, dark wood and maritime bric-a-brac make it feel like a captain's cabin dropped into the Raval, and its place on The World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list confirms a reputation locals have long guarded. In a city awash with cocktail bars, Caribbean Club is the one rum obsessives seek out: historic, intimate and quietly world-class.
20
The Inferno Room

Indianapolis, USA

Proof that serious rum culture has spread far beyond the coasts, The Inferno Room turned Indianapolis's Fountain Square into an unlikely tiki destination when it opened in 2018. Co-owned by hospitality veterans Ed Rudisell and Chris Coy, it is a throwback "Polynesian pop" bar of bamboo, blowfish lamps, carved tikis and a low, transportive glow, built around a large and thoughtfully assembled rum selection that anchors its exotic-cocktail menu. The drinks honour the classics of the tiki canon while showing genuine command of rum styles, and the room's immersive, no-detail-spared design has earned it a regional reputation well out of proportion to the city's size, drawing drinkers from across the Midwest. What keeps it on this list is intent: The Inferno Room treats rum and the tiki tradition with real reverence rather than as a novelty, sourcing widely and pouring with knowledge. For anyone who assumes great rum bars only exist in coastal capitals, Indianapolis offers a persuasive, transporting rebuttal, one of the genuine surprises of the American rum scene, and a thoroughly good time.
21
Nu Lounge Bar

Bologna, Italy

Just off Piazza Maggiore in the heart of Bologna, Nu Lounge Bar has made this university city an unexpected capital of Italian tiki. The draw is its founder, Daniele Dalla Pola, a 2011 cocktail world champion and one of the most internationally respected figures in the tiki and rum world, who built the bar around a collection of high-quality sugarcane spirits and a menu of exacting exotic cocktails. Signatures like the Nu Mai Tai and a benchmark Painkiller show the technical polish, while the room's warm, colourful, unpretentious energy has made it a fixture of Bologna nightlife for years. Its standing on The World's 50 Best Bars Discovery list reflects a reputation that reaches far beyond Italy: visiting bartenders detour to drink here specifically for Dalla Pola's take on the classics. That a globally recognised tiki authority runs a rum-driven bar in Emilia-Romagna, rather than London or Los Angeles, says a great deal about how far the culture has travelled. For rum and tiki with genuine championship pedigree, Nu Lounge is one of Europe's essential rooms.
22
The Rum House

New York, USA

A rare pocket of soul in the tourist churn of Times Square, The Rum House has anchored the ground floor of the historic Hotel Edison since 2011, when the team behind the respected Ward III revived a faded piano bar and pointed it firmly at rum. The name is honest: it keeps what is widely regarded as the neighbourhood's best list of rum-based drinks, from precise daiquiris and Dark 'n' Stormys to a rotating cast of Caribbean and tiki-leaning cocktails, poured across a long, handsome wooden bar. What sets it apart from the surrounding chaos is atmosphere; nightly live jazz and piano give it the feel of an older, more romantic Manhattan, and it has become a favourite refuge for Broadway performers and industry night-owls after the curtain falls. It is less a deep-cellar rum library than a superb, characterful rum-focused cocktail bar, but in a stretch of the city notoriously short on quality drinking, that makes it invaluable. For a proper rum cocktail and live music in Midtown, there is simply nowhere better. A genuine New York institution.
23
Rum Trader

Berlin, Germany

Berlin's Rum Trader is one of the most singular bars in Europe, a tiny, unmarked Charlottenburg room, barely two dozen seats, that has been operating since 1976 and has become a cult pilgrimage for drinkers who value ritual over flash. Since 2001 it has been kept by Gregor Scholl, a bow-tied host who works without a printed menu: you describe what you like and he composes a bespoke cocktail, very often built around rum, from a back bar he knows intimately. Self-styled as an "Institute for Advanced Drinking," it enforces an old-world code of no standing, no loud phones and no rushing that turns a drink into an occasion. It is not a big-numbers rum bar in the modern sense; its greatness lies in expertise, discretion and a rum-centric sensibility maintained with almost monastic discipline for nearly half a century. Time Out and Difford's Guide both hold it up as a Berlin essential. For drinkers who want rum served as a personal, tailored craft rather than a collection to be counted, Rum Trader is unlike anywhere else on this list, and unforgettable.
24
Rum Barrel

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Billed as the first dedicated rum bar in the Netherlands, Rum Barrel brought the cane-spirit gospel to Amsterdam and has grown to two locations on the strength of it. The formula is craft cocktails with tiki styling built on a genuinely deep rum foundation, reported at more than 200 bottles and, at one site, "250 and counting," spanning the producing regions from light Spanish-style rums to Jamaican funk and aged sippers. The drinks list runs past 30 tropical cocktails made with fresh juices and house-made syrups, the details that separate a real rum bar from a resort poolside, and the rooms lean warm and escapist without tipping into pastiche. For a city whose nightlife reputation rests on other things entirely, Rum Barrel is a serious and welcoming rum education, pouring with knowledge and range across a category most Amsterdam bars barely touch. It has built a devoted local following and a solid reputation among visiting enthusiasts. For rum in the Low Countries, it is the clear first stop, proof the spirit's modern renaissance now reaches into every corner of Europe.
25
Paradise Lost

Bangkok, Thailand

Closing the list is the most scenic entry on it: Paradise Lost, a neo-tropical rooftop perched on the 25th floor of the Siam@Siam Design Hotel in central Bangkok. Opened in 2020, it reimagines the tiki bar for the skyline era, with rum-forward cocktails and a lush, jungly aesthetic set against sweeping views over the city, plus a notable zero-waste ethos threaded through the drinks programme. Signatures like a sharp, well-made Jungle Bird show that the rum focus is real rather than incidental, and the bar has drawn strong press since opening as one of the more distinctive rooftop concepts in a city crowded with them. It is more a design-led rooftop cocktail bar than a deep-cellar rum specialist, and it lands at number 25 on that basis, but it earns inclusion by carrying rum and tiki culture into Southeast Asia with genuine style and intent. For a traveller working through Bangkok's famous nightlife, it is the rum-minded rooftop worth seeking out, and a reminder that the spirit's reach is now truly global.

How we ranked them

This is an editorial ranking, not a popularity contest. We prioritised genuine rum specialism, meaning a back bar and drinks list built around the cane spirit rather than treating it as one bottle among many, alongside the depth and rarity of the rum selection, the credibility and influence of the people behind the bar, each venue's contribution to rum and tiki culture, and how reliably it delivers for a drinker walking in today. That balance is why a 2,200-bottle collection in a small Italian resort and a 1930s Havana landmark can both appear on the same list: one leads on range, the other on the history that shaped the entire category. Where a bar is a landmark trading on legend more than a working specialist, as with the two Havana icons, we have said so plainly and placed it accordingly.

Every factual claim here, from collection sizes and opening dates to awards and ownership, is drawn from public sources, the bars' own materials and established drinks-industry press. In keeping with our editorial policy, we do not publish invented ratings or review counts. Rum bars open, close and re-stock constantly, so selections and hours change; always check directly before travelling. Think we have missed a great rum room? Tell us, and we will update this guide as the scene evolves.

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The 25 Best Rum Bars in the World

Aguardiente

El Floridita

La Bodeguita del Medio

How we ranked them

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