The best cocktail bars in Singapore
Singapore drinks above its weight, and the award lists keep saying so. The useful question is which kind of night you want.
For a city its size, Singapore has an unreasonable number of great cocktail bars, and they turn up on Asia's 50 Best and The World's 50 Best Bars every year. The reasons are on show all over town: bartenders who treat local ingredients as seriously as French vermouth, shophouses with a story behind every staircase, and hotel bars that still believe in a proper martini.
This list is deliberately mixed, so choose by mood. There are the award-list regulars, including the only Singapore bar in the 2026 world top 20. There is the bar that started foraging ants for sourness, a gin tower in an Art Deco lobby, a Tokyo-inspired room with a four-ingredient rule, a hotel bar that ages its Negronis in its own rickhouse, and, yes, the Long Bar, because you should drink a Singapore Sling where it was invented at least once.
Book where you can, go early at weekends where you can't, and pace yourself: these drinks are stronger than they look.
Evergreen
The collection
1. Jigger & Pony
Ninth on Asia's 50 Best Bars 2026, its eighth straight year in the regional top ten, and the only Singapore bar in the 2026 world top 20. If you have one night and want the city's best-credentialed bar, this is it. Read the magazine-style menuzines cover to cover, then order the yuzu whisky sour that made its name. Book ahead; the record is no secret.
2. Nutmeg & Clove
Colin Chia's Purvis Street bar makes Singapore the substance of the drink rather than the garnish, which makes it the one to take a visitor to. It placed 12th in Asia and 38th in the world in 2026, and new drinks get Singlish names. Order the Alamak, a clarified, fizzy Singapore Sling, and you have done the city's drink properly without going near Raffles.
3. Native
Vijay Mudaliar's Amoy Street bar uses only spirits and ingredients from the region, ferments its own acids instead of buying limes, and once made its name with a cocktail topped with weaver ants. Go for the drinks no other city could make; skip it if you want a classic made the classic way. It is still the bar that makes Singapore's scene look in the mirror, so ask the bartenders what's new.
4. ATLAS
An Art Deco lobby in the tower taxi drivers call Gotham, with a gin collection in the four figures rising through the room. It is the grandest room on this list, which makes it better for an occasion than for a crawl. Dress up a little, ask the staff for a gin you have never heard of, and look up.
5. Gibson
Up the stairs of a 1930s Bukit Pasoh shophouse, the namesake Gibson is served very cold with a house sake-vermouth and little dishes of pickles and a smoked quail egg. It is one of the best martini variations in town, and the reason to climb the stairs. Live Twice is on the same street, so a two-bar night here needs no taxi.
6. Live Twice
A tribute to Ginza's 1960s cocktail bars, with mid-century chairs, rock on the stereo and a rule that no drink uses more than four ingredients. Order the Mizuwari, whisky and soft water aged in a ceramic urn and topped up like a master stock. It suits someone who likes a drink quiet and exact; come for a second round, not a party.
7. Offtrack
A music-first bar on North Canal Road with a proper sound system and a playlist that digs into the region's overlooked records. It placed 16th on Asia's 50 Best Bars 2026. Choose it when the music matters as much as the drinks. The cocktail list splits between classics and new drinks, and the late-night snack menu at weekends makes it the right last stop.
8. Manhattan
Golden Age New York at Conrad Singapore Orchard, with what the hotel calls the world's first in-hotel rickhouse, ageing spirits in more than 100 oak barrels. Order what the barrels are for: the barrel-aged Manhattan and the solera-aged Negroni. It is the hotel bar for an unhurried drink in a grown-up room rather than a scene, and a fair reward after a day on Orchard Road.
9. Origin Bar
Shangri-La's railway-station-styled bar rewrites its menu every couple of years, so a return visit rarely brings the same drink twice. That makes it a better bet for regulars than for a one-night visitor. Ask the bartenders for the story behind whichever list is current; the menu is built to be talked through, and that conversation is the point of coming.
10. Long Bar
Raffles says the Singapore Sling was first mixed here in 1915, and historians still argue about it. Order one anyway, crack the peanuts and brush the shells on to the floor, as the planters did. Touristy, yes; essential once, also yes. Make it an afternoon drink rather than the whole evening, then move on to somewhere on this list that mixes for locals.
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2. Nutmeg & Clove
3. Native
4. ATLAS
5. Gibson
6. Live Twice
7. Offtrack
8. Manhattan
9. Origin Bar
10. Long Bar
Researched from the sources listed, not a first-hand review. Prices, hours and access can change — check the official site before you go.
