Available here to read, this annual, bar-focused magazine unpicks the global trends that underpin the list.
The GBE editor, Hamish Smith introduces this year's magazine.
In this 13th edition of Drinks International - dedicated to the global bar industry - we've tried to identify embryonic trends. 'Farmtending' is one such recent movement and as Nicholas Coldicott writes, bar farms have sprung up in Japan, Colombia and India. He talks to bartenders with ever-closer relationships with rural producers.
In a piece called The Long Hello, François Monti writes about the increasingly prevalent extended-form trip – festivals and total immersion experiences. Bars are not just selling themselves, but the culture from which they can be understood.
Another post-pandemic trend to have shaped the bar industry is decentralisation, with traditional hubs of bar culture increasingly yielding less gravitational pull for talent. In South America we’re seeing the emergence of smaller bar scenes with ever-more ambitious bars – Sorrel Moseley-Williams reports – and in the US, a more developed market, Tier Two cities are now burgeoning centres of cocktail culture. As Ben Mintz argues, the crossover between growing demand and bar entrepreneurs willing to supply it is proving fruitful.
One unexpected symptom of the post-Covid world is how remote working has become a form of tourism. Blythe Robertson – himself a ‘digital nomad’ – reports from the Balkans on how an army of people with laptops (and disposable incomes) are helping day-night bars thrive.
Meanwhile, in sub-Saharan Africa, Leah van Deventer reports on how the infrastructure that is essential to a modern, developed bar industry is starting to be put in place. It’s from these foundations that sustained growth can come, she says.
Similarly, we hear from Arina Nikolskaya, who is using her skills in event organisation to help build a platform from which the bar industry in Kazakhstan can shine.
And of course, there’s the small matter of The World’s 50 Best Bars – each profile written by in-market drinks journalists who know the bars they describe intimately.
