Best Tbilisi Cocktail Bars in 2026 [Local's Favorites]

Tbilisi's cocktail scene has grown fast. What was a wine-and-chacha city five years ago now has a legitimate craft cocktail culture - one that's increasingly incorporating Georgian ingredients and local spirits into original recipes. If you're visiting or living in the city and want to know where to drink well, here are the cocktail bars actually worth your time.

41 Degrees Art of Drinks

Widely considered the best cocktail bar in Tbilisi. 41 Degrees is a small, intimate basement bar on Galaktion Tabidze Street with brick walls and a handwritten diary-style menu. The name refers to the 41st parallel - the latitude shared by Tbilisi, Barcelona, New York, and Naples. Founder Roman Milostivy has worked in top cocktail bars around the world, and it shows. The house menu rotates monthly and leans heavily on Georgian flavors - chacha-based riffs, local herbs, seasonal fruit. Classics are available too, but the original creations are why you're here. Drinks come with complimentary black walnuts. This is the bar other bartenders in Tbilisi respect.

Crossroads Bar

Crossroads Bar on Shalva Dadiani Street has over 50 cocktails on the menu - a mix of twists on classics and house originals. But the real draw is the atmosphere. This is the most social cocktail bar in Tbilisi, built around a packed weekly schedule: Wednesday quiz nights, Thursday open mic, Friday "Foreigners and Friends" meetups, Saturday parties, and Sunday karaoke. There are board games if you want something to do with your hands. The crowd is heavily international - expats, digital nomads, travelers - and the staff are good at making newcomers feel like regulars. It gets busy from 9-10pm onward, especially on quiz and karaoke nights. Open Wednesday through Sunday from 8pm.

Apotheka Bar and Lounge

Opened in October 2024 on Leonidze Street, Apotheka occupies a former pharmacy - the first one to open in Tbilisi, dating back to 1902. The original decorations have been preserved: frescoed walls with images of medicinal plants, painted ceilings, and wooden medicine cabinets now used as display shelves. The mixologists wear lab coats and the cocktails carry pharmacy-themed names - Penicillin, Vitamin C, Aspirin. Cocktails run around 25 GEL. The concept could easily feel gimmicky, but the drinks back it up. One of the best new additions to the scene.

The Gin Corner

Tbilisi's first and only dedicated gin bar, tucked away on Sayat-Nova Street in the Old Town. More than 220 varieties of gin are on hand, including several Georgian-distilled brands like Malamo and the house's own limited-edition Ethno gin, made with ingredients sourced from the local bazaar. It's family-owned - mixologist Geka runs the bar alongside his mother Tamuna - and the hospitality feels genuinely personal. In summer 2025, they opened a second location in Chugureti called House of Juniper. If gin is your thing, nowhere else in the Caucasus comes close.

Kikodze Bar

Located inside the Wine Factory N1 complex on Petriashvili Street in Vera, Kikodze specializes in infused liquors - the bar is lined with bottles of house infusions. Standout drinks include the White Leather (peanut oil fat-washed bourbon, agave, ginger, lemon, finished with a Laphroaig float) and Highway Star. The space is small and intimate, with brick walls and teal velvet chairs. It doubles as a brunch spot during the day, then transitions to cocktails in the evening. The Wine Factory N1 courtyard around it adds good options for bar-hopping without changing location.

Chacha Time

If you want to understand chacha - Georgia's national grape spirit - this is where you start. Chacha Time on Kikodze Street stocks over 40 varieties from across the country, including barrel-aged options made in traditional qvevri vessels. The bartenders are knowledgeable and happy to walk you through tasting flights before moving into cocktails. The Old Georgia - a chacha-based Old Fashioned with smoked oak barrel aging - is the signature. There's a full food menu too, including nadughi sticks with matsoni-ajika that regulars swear by.

What to expect

Cocktails in Tbilisi typically run 18-35 GEL (roughly $6-12 USD), which makes it easy to try multiple bars in an evening. Most of these spots are concentrated in central Tbilisi - Old Town, Sololaki, Vera - so bar-hopping on foot is practical. Nights start late by European standards; showing up before 10pm means you'll have the bar mostly to yourself. Service tends to be personal and unhurried. Bartenders remember faces here, especially at smaller spots like The Gin Corner where the regulars and the staff blur together, or at Crossroads Bar where the weekly events mean you keep running into the same faces.