What happens when cocktail bars stop wasting ingredients

Depending on how discerning you are, when you choose a cocktail bar, you’re likely thinking about a few factors: the ambience, the bartenders’ talent, the drinks menu. Rarely, if ever, are you sparing a thought for the bar’s sustainability practices or their methods of tackling waste. That could soon change.

The bars creatively championing sustainability

Whether or not patrons realise it, bars can be pretty wasteful environments. Spilled drinks, ice, fruit skins, leftover ingredients and more all contribute to the footprint of a bar. With increasing awareness of our individual impact on the environment, that attitude is shifting. Many bars are taking their attempts at sustainability a step further, with unique approaches and methods that only add to their creativity. These aren’t just hippy spots, either. Several of them were featured on the inaugural list of Europe’s 50 Best Bars that dropped on 1 July 2026.

Take Himkok, in Oslo, a multi-award-winning cocktail bar and distillery. They source all ingredients locally, follow environmentally friendly production techniques, and implement methods to reduce water use. Their distillery is powered by renewable energy, and everything is made on-site. World-renowned Angelita, in Madrid, exclusively uses local produce and makes everything in their bar by hand with cutting-edge techniques like ancestral ferments, distillates, vacuum methods and modulated temperatures. More uniquely, they have a ‘no ice’ system that saves 45,000kg a year of water. Fura, in Singapore, takes things one step further. Founded by partners Christina Rasmussen (former head-forager for Noma) and Sasha Wijidessa, Fura is primarily plant-based, with ingredients harvested from their own garden. Perhaps controversially, non-plant-based items on the menu include the Jellyfish Martini, the logic being that it’s an ‘overly-prevalent’ species. If jellyfish isn’t for you, you can also enjoy ‘future proteins’ like crickets.

These kinds of extreme approaches to sustainability drive press around a bar, but they also impact every single aspect of how a bar operates and how a bartender works. Wanting to get a deeper idea of how these methods play out, we spoke to Hyacinthe Lescoêt, co-founder of Cambridge Public House, a spot in the Marais in Paris that combines the chill ambience of a pub with the expertise of a cocktail bar. When it comes to their approach, they prefer the term ‘responsibility’ over ‘sustainability’, believing it to be more defined. ‘As a business, we are responsible for our staff, for our community and for the planet. It is our duty to make sure we have a good impact,’ says Lescoêt. That commitment goes further than a vague statement; Cambridge is a B Corp that shares their ESG report and partners with an external agency to audit their emissions.

Day to day, they have a creative process that includes waste management from the very beginning. Their seasonal menu changes every week, and all of their cocktails focus on a local ingredient. More than that, it also needs to be completely used or compostable. ‘We still give all the tools and directions to the team to implement this in their creativity,’ says Lescoêt. ‘Yet, the best way of tackling waste is to not make any at all. Everything in the ingredients is used throughout the conception of the drink. And if we can’t, the last magic tool is a beautiful compost we have at the bar.’

Across Paris, in Montorgueil in the busy second arrondissement, restaurant and bar De Vie has a ‘farm to glass’ approach. They source their seasonal ingredients exclusively from producers and farmers in mainland France, ideally as close to Paris as possible. Seasonal means seasonal, too-fresh citrus fruits will only appear on the menu when French citrus is available; if they need acidity any other time, they use preserves or infused vinegars for acidity. When we asked about their approach to sustainability, they happily sent me a full, detailed rundown of their suppliers. Transparency is at the heart of their business.

There is a dialogue between the bar and kitchen that enables them to use up everything. For example, leftover fruit pulp from batches of wine or infusions produced by the bar team is processed in the kitchen and reincorporated into the menu. They do not use any ice at all in the bar, instead prebatching drinks. They have a refrigerated drawer unit that can be used as either a fridge or freezer, holding all batches at their desired temperature. I asked co-founder Barney O’Kane how this impacts the staff: ‘Working within this ethos means we have to carefully plan the next steps for all the stages of preparation and production associated with that produce. If we source carrots from a small farm, what will we use the carrot leaves for? We see these challenges as a positive, as it forces our hand and pushes us to create more interesting ways to utilise and re-utilise all our ingredients.’

While many of the bars championing more sustainable practices are in Europe, this is far from a localised phenomenon. Bars in Asia are particularly forward-thinking; Zest, in Seoul, has won awards specifically for its sustainable approach. They use at least one locally sourced ingredient in each of their signature drinks and are transparent about the exact farms they came from. Reka:Bar is a futuristic ‘cocktail lab’ specialising in inventive cocktails in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that is currently listed as one of the World’s 50 Best Bars. Founder Nick Choo kindly took time out of a European tour to guide me through their process. Reka offers a signature menu called the ‘Domino Effect’ wherein every cocktail uses the byproduct of the main ingredient of one drink as the secondary ingredient in another, creating a ‘chain reaction’ of flavour and minimising waste while ‘creating an exciting story for guests.’

Aside from their signature menu, says Choo, waste from their drinks is repurposed in their food, and vice versa: ‘We try our best to use every ingredient wholly; for example, we turn banana peels into a delicious gel garnish for one of our cocktails.’ Additionally, they work with ethical farmers who don’t use fertilisers and pesticides, such as A Little Farm on the Hill, whose ethos is that their farm grows soil, not plants. The bar itself is also designed to minimise the use of electricity with techniques such as all-LED lighting and an insulated interior to cut back on air conditioning. Prioritising sustainability doesn’t hold Reka back from being a boundary-breaking bar; the boundaries give them more licence to be creative. In their new ‘Magic’ menu, they recreate the flavour of expensive and high-carbon-footprint fruit such as lychee with low-carbon-footprint ingredients such as celery and guava.

Cocktail bars have long been stages for creativity, innovation, and, let’s face it, showing off. It’s not enough to just put together a nice martini anymore – it’s a competitive scene, and with hard times for the industry, bar professionals have to get more inventive all the time to save money, tackle waste, save money and get customers through the door. These ground-breaking sustainability practices do all of that and more, making a genuine impact on their footprint across the world while still delivering first-class experiences to guests. And as guests, if we can support sustainability initiatives and still get a delicious drink and memorable evening out of it, there’s really no losing.