After the high of this year's Singapore Cocktail Week, the local drinks scene gets another dose of happy juice: the city's picked up nine spots on the Asia's 50 Best Bars list, including number one on the list.
Manhattan
That honour went to 28HKS, who beat out bars in Hong Kong, Tokyo (including Hidetsugu Ueno’s Bar High Five) and Shanghai to pick up first place. Manhattan and Operation Dagger also cosied up to the top ten, while the Jigger and Pony Group saw three of its establishments – Jigger and Pony, Gibson and Sugarhall – make the cut, too.
Gibson's bar programme director, Aki Eguchi
Across the Causeway, the guys from Omakase + Appreciate picked up Malaysia's only honours, coming in at a respectable tenth place. Elsewhere on the list, Hong Kong picked up nine notches, Japan trails behind with eight, Bangkok with six and Taipei with five bars on the list. That’s your holiday drinking itinerary, sorted.
Announced on social media last night, this is the first regional edition of the World's 50 Best Bars list, put together by international trade mag, Drinks International. The bars were selected by a panel of bartenders, consultants, brand ambassadors and journalists, each of whom were tasked to pick their top five bars – including two outside their country of work.
Here are Singapore's rankings, at a glance:
#1: 28HKS
#5: Manhattan
#7: Operation Dagger
#8: Jigger & Pony
#12: Tippling Club
#13 D.Bespoke
#22: Gibson
#43: Anti:dote
#48: Sugarhall