Sunday, February 16, 2025

Four SA Gems Crack World’s Best Bars List For 2022

This list takes a trip to 32 cities, including Cape Town and Jozi, with 15 new entries on the ranking.

[imagesource: Cause | Effect Cocktail Kitchen]

The World’s 50 Best Bars is celebrating its 14th edition this year.

To do so, The 50 Best is honouring some of the best drinking holes around the world. Thus far, they’ve released the names of the bars voted between 51st and 100th in the extended ranking.

The 50 Best has done well to acknowledge each spot’s outstanding performance in the global bar sector over the past year, having all faired well in the face of extensive challenges.

This list takes a trip to 32 cities, with 15 new entries on the ranking, casting a wider spotlight on a greater number of bars and regions from around the world, notes Cape Town Etc.

That very much includes South Africa, we are proud to tell you.

Our country has four outstanding cocktail establishments on the list, including three from Cape Town.

Coming in hot is Cape Town’s Cause | Effect Cocktail Kitchen at number 53.

“This Cape Town venue aims to turn local cocktail tradition on its head with its menu of bold and expertly crafted drinks,” writes 50 Best, boasting about the bar’s sustainable closed-loop ingredients usage and waterless system, where each drink is chilled without using ice.

The mixologists dressed in lab coats are also a perk:

The new entry Art of Duplicity comes in at number 88.

This bar is perhaps the most intriguing as it actually is a hidden bar, “putting other so-called speakeasies to shame”:

Obtain the password, locate the secret venue within a Victorian warehouse in central Cape Town, and you’ll be immersed in a time gone by, when Prohibition was in force and cocktails were served behind closed doors such as this one.

You can bet your bottom dollar that you’ll be feeling rather vintage or even bygone in the space:

The House of Machines slots in nicely at number 92.

THoM stands out for being a lot of things at once: a motorbike shop, a coffee shop with its own brand of coffee, a menswear store selling exclusive items of modern clothing, a gig venue, a restaurant, and a craft beer specialist.

Naturally, it’s a cocktail bar, too, serving an “accessible, unpretentious selection of twists on classics alongside some straightforward spirit-and-mixer options” that suit the “rustic yet contemporary environs”:

Johannesburg’s Sin + Tax rounds off the list at number 100.

A speakeasy venue accessed through a metal door at Johannesburg pizza spot Coalition, this bar is lauded as being “welcoming and relaxed”.

While the bartenders never miss the good old classics, they enjoy fussing over what is seasonal and “work hard at evolving the offering with flavour-centric combinations”:

 

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For the other drink-led adventure spots, mostly in Singapore, the UK, and the US, check out the full 50 Best list.

[sources:50best&capetownetc]