The 16 Best Places to Drink in South Africa

A cocktail bar that earns its mystique: the address is withheld, the website offers little but a booking link, and you'll need a password before you find the place tucked inside a Victorian warehouse in central Cape Town. The bartenders dress the period, every vintage detail follows through, and the cocktail list is inventive enough to justify the ceremony. A Discovery from The 50 Bar Awards. Other so-called speakeasies are taking notes.

The bar inside Marble, Johannesburg's wood-fired temple to South African meat, turns out to be serious about drinking. The cocktail list leans local in a low-key way, rooibos finding its way into the tequila, lemon verbena turning up where you might not expect it. A deep cellar covers both local and international wines, and the non-alcoholic options are genuinely thought through rather than an apology. Marble holds a spot on The 50 Discovery list.

The private Dali Room, with its animal-print banquettes and wall-to-wall Surrealist imagery, tells you exactly what kind of place this is before you've ordered a thing. Obscura is a cocktail bar in Rosebank with bold, maximalist design throughout and a drinks list built around complex, visually arresting cocktails. George Hunter is behind the bar program, and the menu reads like it was written to be stared at before you drink it.

Old cartoons flicker on a single TV while graffiti covers every surface, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Melville dive bar. Rum anchors the drinks list, from a broad back-bar selection to a short cocktail menu running things like a Peanut Colada or a Marsala Rum Sour. The punk and grunge decor is commitment, not concept, and the weekly specials keep the crowd honest.

A three-floor cocktail bar where vintage sports memorabilia covers the walls in tribute to a former owner who ran a speakeasy in the basement and apparently collected both pills and pennants. The balcony overlooking Signal Hill earns its reputation. Classics and barrel-aged options anchor the drinks list, while the signature side leans into housemade ingredients and stranger flavor pairings for anyone who wants the bar to do the thinking.

The building was a slave prison before it became a cocktail bar, which gives Heritage Square's best-kept secret a weight that no amount of exposed brick could manufacture on its own. The Drinkery leans into the history with contemporary art on the walls, a chessboard for lingering, and a living-room vibe that makes ordering a third drink feel perfectly reasonable. The cocktail list skews adventurous, with port and absinthe sharing a glass without apology.

A gin bar tucked inside a Mediterranean-style courtyard, reached through a cafe that gives nothing away. Once inside, the theme is South African gin, with over 70 local bottles on the shelves and a signature G&T list drawn from the building's former life as a morgue, which is either a gimmick or a perfectly reasonable way to name a cocktail, depending on your disposition. No speakeasy cosplay, just a lot of very specific botanical choices.