Seeing Red in Milan: Inside The 50 Best Bars 2026

In the world of mixology, the clearest sign that you’ve made it is a red ceremonial scarf, handed to every team that lands on The 50 Best Bars list. On October 7, that scarf made its last appearance of the year in Milan, where the global edition of The 50 Best Bars 2026 brought the international cocktail community to the city for the first time.

The ceremony took over the Palazzo del Ghiaccio, a Liberty-style landmark that opened in 1923 as Europe’s largest indoor ice rink and now hosts runway shows and gala nights. For one evening, the city that gave the world aperitivo culture became the center of it. Bartenders, bar owners and brands from 26 cities arrived via the red carpet for a drinks reception before the night’s main event.

Milan marked the final stop on a long road for Cointreau, which spent 2026 as the official sponsor of the iconic red scarf ceremony across all four of The 50 Best Bars 2026 ceremonies. That run took the scarf from North America to Asia and, for the very first time, to Europe. It was the brand’s second year as Official Orange Liqueur Partner, and it came with a promise of bigger, bolder moments at every stop under the “Shake It Up” banner. For a brand that has spent more than a century and a half inside some of the world’s most enduring cocktails, from the Margarita to the Sidecar and the Cosmopolitan, the tagline doubled as a statement of intent.

Cointreau Spicy, the brand’s chili-infused spin on its signature orange liqueur, carried that promise into the glass all season, with appearances in Vancouver and Amsterdam, where it starred in a Spicy Watermelon Margarita at the inaugural The 50 Best Bars Europe edition. In Milan, the Cointreau booth closed out the year with cocktails featuring both Cointreau L’Unique and Cointreau Spicy, including two standout serves created by the team at Lyaness: the Cointreau Bubbles, a vibrant celebration of orange in all its complexity, and the Spiced Carrot Margarita, a bold twist on the classic cocktail combining citrus, warming spice and savory notes. It was fitting that the Margarita took center stage. When Cointreau asked some of the world’s leading bartenders about the drinks defining the industry, the Margarita emerged as the clear favorite, named as both their cocktail of choice and the drink they’d most likely order to mark a special occasion. Orange liqueur is one of the three pillars of the classic, alongside tequila and lime, and Cointreau has long been the bottle bartenders reach for to hold that balance together. The Margarita’s simple formula is also why it keeps reinventing itself. Over the past decade it has gone frozen, smoky with mezcal and fruit-forward, and above all spicy, as chili-laced versions moved from off-menu bartender requests to fixtures on cocktail lists around the world. Rather than chase that shift, Cointreau Spicy builds the heat directly into the modifier, giving bartenders a new foundation for the drink, while the Spiced Carrot Margarita shows where the template can go next.

The biggest Cointreau moment of the night, though, took place onstage rather than at the booth, where the scarf’s red mirrors the ribbon that has wrapped every Cointreau bottle since 1849. Over the past two years, it has become one of the most recognizable sights in hospitality. Emma Sleight, Head of Content for The 50 Best Bars, described it as “one of the most powerful symbols in our industry,” adding that “it represents passion, creativity and relentless pursuit of excellence.”

When the countdown began, bar teams took the stage one by one from No. 50 upward and were draped in red, until the final scarf went to a name the room already knew well. Bar Leone has a special connection to that scarf, since Cointreau first dressed the world’s winners in red at the 2025 ceremony in Hong Kong, the same night Bar Leone took its first world title. Twelve months and one continent later, the Hong Kong bar wore it again.

What makes the win remarkable is how deliberately unflashy Bar Leone sets out to be, with co-founder Lorenzo Antinori modeling the Central bar on the neighborhood drinking spots of Rome’s Trastevere. His philosophy, Cocktail Popolari, translates to “cocktails for the people,” and it runs through everything from the wood paneling and football memorabilia to a bar menu built around smoked olives and a mortadella sandwich. There are no gimmicks, just classics made with care and service that makes a first-timer feel like a regular. Faye Huggett, Director of Community for The 50 Best Bars, said in a statement: “To be the first ever No.1 from Asia was already an outstanding achievement, of which Lorenzo and his team are hugely deserving, but to retain the title for a second consecutive year shows the true impact of Cocktail Popolari.”

Milan’s own Moebius Milano gave the host city a hometown moment of its own, rising to No.2 and earning the title of The Best Bar in Europe. Paris, for the first time, overtook London as Europe’s most represented city and drew level with Hong Kong and New York at four bars each. The Athens contingent that topped the Amsterdam list this summer also carried its momentum to the global stage, with Line landing at No.5 alongside the Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award and The Bar in Front of the Bar climbing 28 places to No.19.

As the scarves came off and Milan’s bar crawl spilled into the night, the season made its case that the world’s best bars share a spirit more than a style: a Roman-style neighborhood joint in Hong Kong, a zero-waste lab in Athens and a hometown favorite in Milan, all wearing the same red. Bar Leone is already looking ahead, with a third Hong Kong bar set to open at Rosewood Hong Kong in November. And for Cointreau, after a year spent dressing the world’s best in its signature color, the red scarf has become the industry’s shorthand for making it to the top.

Please Drink Responsibly.