The bars on this list are showoffs. If you want a casual, cozy night head over to our dive bar map — these right here are cocktail bars run by people who are serious about their booze. You’ve got the James Beard-nominated Sophon, SennzaFinne’s inventive amaro concoctions, the towering shelves of bottles at Dead Line. That’s not to say there’s no room for whimsy or fun here (Revelry Room’s meme-referencing It’s Corn!!! is a playful maize-inception with a tortilla chip-infused straight corn whiskey base), but these are craft cocktails with an emphasis on craft. Here are the spots to go when you want to impress a date, work colleague, or out-of-town visitor. As usual these bars are not ranked but organized geographically, north to south.
The Best Cocktail Bars in Seattle
Herbal infusions, inventive flavor combinations, and more innovations from Seattle’s cocktail scene
Mark DeJoy is a lifelong Seattleite who has been writing about PNW food and nightlife since 2021.
New to this map as of March 2025: the Revelry Room, partly because it serves great drinks and partly because West Seattle had no representation on this map before.
Know of a spot that should be on our radar? Send us a tip by emailing seattle@eater.com.
The Best Cocktail Bars in Seattle
Herbal infusions, inventive flavor combinations, and more innovations from Seattle’s cocktail scene
Mark DeJoy is a lifelong Seattleite who has been writing about PNW food and nightlife since 2021.
The bars on this list are showoffs. If you want a casual, cozy night head over to our dive bar map — these right here are cocktail bars run by people who are serious about their booze. You’ve got the James Beard-nominated Sophon, SennzaFinne’s inventive amaro concoctions, the towering shelves of bottles at Dead Line. That’s not to say there’s no room for whimsy or fun here (Revelry Room’s meme-referencing It’s Corn!!! is a playful maize-inception with a tortilla chip-infused straight corn whiskey base), but these are craft cocktails with an emphasis on craft. Here are the spots to go when you want to impress a date, work colleague, or out-of-town visitor. As usual these bars are not ranked but organized geographically, north to south.
New to this map as of March 2025: the Revelry Room, partly because it serves great drinks and partly because West Seattle had no representation on this map before.
Know of a spot that should be on our radar? Send us a tip by emailing seattle@eater.com.
Dark Room
The departure of star bartender and former co-owner Matthew Gomez last year left big shoes to fill, but chef/owner Amy Beaumier has assembled a Voltron bartending team who have collaborated on an equally stunning new cocktail menu. The effervescent Kulam (vodka, pear perilla soju, Midori, spiced Asian pear cordial, lime, and soda) pairs perfectly with any of Beaumier’s can’t-miss Korean-inspired plates. And the herbal and citrusy Glimpse of Divinity pays tribute to the former menu’s Pisco and Paparazzi by coming garnished with a Polaroid of you drinking it.
Dark Room
Sophon
Sophon is a 2025 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Bar and it can still be tricky to get a table. But fun fact: There are frequently walk-in seats available at the bar. After you’re set up with a plate of p’set ang (spicy grilled trumpet mushrooms) and sach chrouk (caramelized, star-anised pork belly), what you’re probably looking for is a cheese-flavored cocktail, and you’ll be in luck. The Khlang, made with brie-washed rye, nocino, sweet vermouth, and delicata squash tincture, is a rounder, nuttier, deliciouser take on a Manhattan. And since you’re at the bar, you might as well get a Mekong, which isn’t available to the table sitters — it’s coconut cream, blended rum, ripe mango AND unripe mango, and a bespoke orgeat made from roasted peanuts and fish sauce. These two should be plenty to show newcomers why this vibrant new spot has been so hyped since Day 1. There’s just nothing like it in town. —Meg van Huygen
Suzi Pratt
Baker’s
Backed by an impressive alcohol inventory, this pocket-sized Sunset Hill bar specializes in Prohibition-influenced cocktails with a contemporary twist. Each drink boasts a mosaic of carefully selected ingredients that coax out flavorful overtures not seen in most cocktail classics. A prime example is the Accomplice in the Woodchipper, a Fargo-referencing tipple featuring shiitake-infused Old Forester bourbon, SennzaFinne Last Leaf amaro, and awamori — a long-grain rice spirit unique to Okinawa, Japan.
Baker’s
Korochka Tavern
Settle down into your grandma’s floral-print living room and prepare to get trashed, Soviet-style. This lovely Wallingford parlor features Slavic snacks — pelmeni, borscht, housemade pickles, and many-layered honey cake — as well as stiff drinks served in beautiful glassware. See, they don’t really have a cocktail culture in Russia, where folks mostly take their vodka straight, so Korochka co-owners Kendall Murphy and Lisa Malinovskaya set out to create Russian-themed cocktails, then named their bar after Malinovskaya’s childhood nickname. (Korochka means “heel of the bread,” a loving Russian epithet for stubborn people). Cottagecore vibes are strong here, with lots of earthy-foresty flavors on the cocktail list like beets, mushrooms, walnuts and birch syrup. A Korochka classic, the Bonfire, brings together mezcal, green walnut liqueur, pine liqueur, Benedictine, and Ango bitters, for example. Or you can just keep it legit and clean out your sinuses with a shot of horseradish-infused vodka. —Meg van Huygen
Stampede Cocktail Club
According to owner and seasoned bartender Paul Shanrock, Stampede’s goal is “to be the most fun, delicious bar.” This ambition shows in this cocktail den’s menu, which changes every six months to explore new flavors and guest reactions. Here are unexpected pairs like aperol and mezcal or tequila and sherry, merged beautifully together with a plethora of house-made ingredients (smoked salted whipped cream, anyone?).
SennzaFinne
Follow the signs in this industrial neighborhood off Dravus St, and you’ll find the warehouse containing SennzaFinne’s distillery and tasting room. Once you step inside the fluorescent-lit hallway, you’d still never dream there’s a darling little cocktail bar at the end of it. SennzaFinne is a local amaro producer, and in fact, they have an extra good-smelling secret lounge stashed away down by the train tracks, only open from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, where patrons can enjoy frequently rotating cocktails du jour among the open bins of calendula and angelica. A recent chalkboard special was the One from the Heart: mole-infused tequila, cold brew, spiced syrup, and SennzaFInne’s “Rustling Wood” amaro made with cedar, hazelnuts, coffee, chicory, and cacao.
Meg van Huygen
The Sitting Room
Look, they lay the kitsch on heavy at The Sitting Room, but! Each drink on the menu can easily hold its own, with or without all the cute trinkets and garnishes. This candlelit lounge manages to be at once sexy-intimate and super friendly, with jokey vibes and a chatty waitstaff. The extensive and elaborate cocktail list changes quarterly, and is liable to include enticing ingredients like, say, banana-infused tequila, coconut-washed calvados, smoked cinnamon, MSG, horchata foam, the list goes on... Their creative low- and no-ABV options are immaculate too. —Meg van Huygen
The Doctor’s Office
Before opening its Capitol Hill doors in 2020, the Doctor’s Office conducted over 300 blind taste tests and gathered spirits from around the world to fine-tune the recipe for every classic cocktail on the menu. As owner Matthew “Dr. Matt” Powell puts it, “The only way to know we could honestly tell a guest, ‘This is the best Negroni I’ve ever had’ was to try every combination. So that’s exactly what we did.” But don’t let TDO’s exacting approach, high-end spirits selection, and reservations-recommended MO be mistaken for pretense. It’s all in pursuit of hedonism — that is, fun. And here you’ll find bartenders who are as welcoming as they are talented, with original drinks that are often playful (with ingredients such as brioche-infused vodka, or sesame oil, or sherry-cinnamon syrup, etc) while every bit as composed as the fastidiously derived classics.
Rob Roy
Owner Anu Apte describes Rob Roy as “a cocktail den celebrating classic drinks with a bit of punk cheek.” Drinks like the Old Soul (bourbon with Jelinek fernet and Genepy Des Alpes) and the House Martini (a split base of vodka and gin, with river rock tincture and fino sherry, garnished with olives, a twist, and pearl onions) demonstrate that bit of punk cheek in action, and showi why this bar has remained a Belltown favorite for over 15 years while frequently earning James Beard Award nominations along the way.
Zig Zag Cafe
Zig Zag became a nearly instant mecca for the nascent craft cocktail movement when Ben Dougherty and then-business partner Kacy Fitch bought it in 2002, and many of Seattle’s star bartenders came up through its ranks. Yes, Zig Zag’s past is storied, but its present is just as eminent, with a menu that ranges from tradition-oriented technique to swing-for-the-fences creativity, always with an emphasis on next-level hospitality.
Bad Bishop
Bad Bishop fits right into its location on the border of downtown and Pioneer Square with its antique red brick interior, understated stylishness, and smart twists on timeless cocktails. For instance, the Blind Swine (developed when owners Jesse Spring and Keaton Cooper were at the also-excellent Jarr Bar) is an upgrade on a dirty martini, with vodka, piparras pepper brine and a chorizo-wrapped piparras pepper. But for something outside of the canon, try the Beets by K, an enticingly herbal, earthy concoction featuring gin, roasted beet and blood orange simple syrup, lemon, and celery bitters. The bar also sells its own cocktail book for those who want to try making their creations at home.
Dead Line
The near two-story-high shelves of liquor bottles behind the bartop are what draws the eye when entering, but your attention quickly shifts to the wide range of beautiful cocktails. There are cheeky drinks that include ingredients like “sweet banana Irish cream” all the way up to high-roller “Reserved” cocktails that draw from the annals of history, like the circa-1876 Improved Whisky Cocktail. There’s also a South American-influenced food menu.
Revelry Room
Enter through the alley behind Jet City Labs and Easy Street Records — look for the large ‘R’ painted on the wall, along with the Revelry Room sign in the narrow window to the right of the door — and don’t worry about whether or not this is a “speakeasy.” Inside you’ll find stylish 70s-futurist aesthetics, chic lighting, and a menu of stellar cocktails and beverages from Black-owned breweries, distilleries, wineries, coffee producers, and more. One of the many stars of the cocktail list is Mr. Big Stuff, an opulent blend of peated Scotch, Boon Boona coffee-infused Vecchio Amaro del Capo, amaretto, tobacco bitters, and a smoked cinnamon stick. It’s rich and nutty, with subtle smoke and a hint of leathery mystique from the bitters, and an ideal sipper while the DJ steps into the booth to begin their set.(Depending on the night, maybe it’s uptempo Afrobeat, maybe it’s throwback pop, maybe it’s KEXP DJ Supreme La Rock stopping by to spin soul bangers.
Mark DeJoy
Lariat Bar
For cocktail nerds who don’t take themselves too seriously, how about chugging some crafties in a WWE-themed dive? Decked out with floor-to-ceiling wrestling art and memorabilia, White Center’s Lariat Bar is so dedicated to the bit it even has a miniature wrestling ring that doubles as a stage on karaoke nights. Cocktail menu mainstays include the Shayna Basil-er (a tribute to legendary wrestler Shayna Baszler) with Grey Goose, Giffard Peach, watermelon, basil, grapefruit, and bubbles, or the Hillbilly Gin, with Hendrick’s, Giffard Framboise, cardamom bitters, and lemon. Don’t miss their list of nonalcoholic drinks either, labeled “Kayfabe” — our favorite culinary wrestling analogy in a while, possibly ever.
