The Worldwide Bartenders Affiliation, or IBA, maintains an inventory of official cocktails, ones they deem to be “essentially the most requested recipes” at bars all around the globe. It’s the closest factor the bartending business has to a canonical listing of cocktails, akin to the American Kennel Membership’s registry of canine breeds or a jazz musician’s Actual E-book of requirements.
The IBA official cocktail listing is the sort of listing that has its personal Sporcle quiz and its personal Wikipedia article—an “IBA official cocktail” label even christens the highest of every cocktail’s personal Wikipedia infobox:
As of 2025, there are 102 IBA official cocktails, and as of July 12, 2025, I’ve had each one in all them.
The journey has taken me to some fascinating locations, and now that it’s achieved, I’ve just a little story to inform for every cocktail. I’m not gonna inform you all 102 tales, however I do wish to debrief the expertise. Consuming all 102 cocktails turned out to be unexpectedly difficult, and for causes you’ll quickly perceive, I is likely to be one of many first folks on the planet to do it.
⚠ Drink responsibly!
This endeavor concerned consuming a variety of alcohol, however I did it over the course of some years. It’s uncommon that I’ve greater than a drink or two in a single evening (and by no means have I ever blacked out from consuming).
I don’t suggest speedrunning the IBA official cocktail listing. It’s vital to know your limits, be acutely aware about how a lot you’re consuming, and drink a variety of water. When you’re battling an alcohol habit, you need to most likely cease studying this publish and discuss to somebody (if you happen to’re exterior of the US, you could find a helpline right here).
The way it began
I’m one thing of an inventory keeper. However it may be arduous to resolve when to start out protecting observe of issues. So generally, I choose an arbitrary start line that feels vaguely fateful, and I maintain an inventory from that time on. For albums, it was the day I received my AirPods Professional delivered. For eating places, it was the day I moved to New York Metropolis. For cocktails, it was the day I turned 21.
I began a be aware in Obsidian known as Authorized Cocktails, enumerating every sort of basic cocktail I had consumed since I got here of age. A dry martini at 5801 to usher in my birthday. A intercourse on the seaside on an intern dinner cruise a pair weeks later.
Over the following couple years, Authorized Cocktails grew to about 50 totally different drinks. All through my senior 12 months at Illinois, my extra epicurean buddies Aidan and Christian would host a collection of little get-togethers the place they’d combine us drinks of their residences, starting from extra pedestrian picks just like the daiquiri and negroni to deeper cuts just like the hanky panky and a half-decent Ramos gin fizz Christian made out of melted butter.
First semester that 12 months, I took a Beverage Administration class, which was ostensibly about managing bars, but it surely was no secret that everybody took it due to its tasting part. The final lecture centered on cocktails, and the tasting part featured an quaint, martini, margarita, whiskey bitter, and the new-to-me Planter’s punch—not unhealthy for a university class. And thru all of it, I used to be generally a traditional faculty scholar, consuming Lengthy Island iced teas at Legends completely satisfied hour and shitty tequila sunrises at Pink Lion (I remorse to tell you I deemed the Kams Blue Man too proprietary for my listing).
A while after graduating and shifting to New York Metropolis, I started to reckon with Authorized Cocktails. What actually counted as a “basic” cocktail? The place do I draw the road? It felt just a little arbitrary. So on Could 9, 2024, I made a decision to retcon the listing right into a guidelines, and nix the “authorized” requirement (one thing one thing statute of limitations). I had heard of the IBA official cocktail listing from my time on Sporcle and Wikipedia, so it appeared like pretty much as good an inventory as any to base mine on.
At that time, there have been 89 IBA official cocktails, and I had tried 33 of them (a bunch of those on Authorized Cocktails weren’t IBA official, just like the Jägerbomb and, weirdly, the amaretto bitter). One factor was for positive: I had a variety of consuming to do.
Anatomy of an inventory
The IBA official cocktail listing has existed for over 60 years. It was first proposed in Paris in 1960 by bartender and IBA founding member Angelo Zola, who felt the necessity to standardize the mess of cocktail recipes that differed relying on which bartender you requested. Zola assembled a committee inside the IBA, and collectively, they selected a set of cocktails that finest represented an important recipes served around the globe.
The next 12 months in Oslo, Zola’s imaginative and prescient turned a actuality, and the inaugural listing was unveiled. It comprised 50 cocktails, lots of which stay on the listing at this time, however a few of which (just like the zaza) have passed by the wayside. That’s as a result of the listing has gone by means of huge revisions each 10 years or so, with the IBA including drinks they deem newly related and eradicating ones which have fallen out of trend. (The 89-cocktail listing I based mostly my guidelines on was established within the 2020 replace.)
There are various methods one would possibly manage an inventory of cocktails, however the IBA chooses to group them into three classes: the Unforgettables (these are all-time classics, just like the Manhattan and the uhhh monkey gland), the Modern (these are newer, however have solidified basic standing, just like the Mai Tai and the Moscow mule), and the New Period (these are rising stars invented within the late twentieth or early twenty first century, just like the espresso martini and the paper aircraft).
A lot of the listing contains fairly regular cocktails {that a} good bartender would acknowledge. However some instantly struck me as esoteric, or arduous to acquire for one motive or one other—just like the Canchanchara, which requires Cuban aguardiente; the Spicy Fifty, an oddly particular recipe with crimson chili pepper in it; and what I noticed as the ultimate boss of the listing, the Ve.n.to, with its arcanely formatted identify and a recipe centered on grappa and a hyper-specialized “chamomile cordial.” All of them, nonetheless, had a Wikipedia web page (regardless of how small), their inclusion on the listing alone serving as a badge of legitimacy.
I used to be barely satisfied the Ve.n.to was planted on the listing by Huge Grappa, and so far as I may inform, it was solely served at one bar in middle-of-nowhere Italy (the Spicy Fifty, one in London). However I had an inventory to finish, and nothing was gonna cease me.
Easy crusing
For some time, checking cocktails off the listing was straightforward. It was only a matter of going to bars and eating places (which, like some other yuppie, I used to be already doing), scanning the menu, and hoping to discover a basic cocktail I hadn’t but tried. A boulevardier at Kelly’s. A Champagne cocktail at Antler (one in all my early favorites, a pleasant mix of bitters and bubbles).
A formative second early within the quest got here at Uncle Charlie’s Piano Lounge in Midtown with Ming and Alina. A divey homosexual bar with no menu? Appeared like an ideal alternative to examine off some drinks! I scanned by means of my listing to search out one thing easy to try to order, went as much as a mustachioed bartender, and requested, “may you do a caipirinha?” He replied, “nah, we don’t have cachaça”—a actuality examine—and I mentioned, “alright, I’ll simply do uhhh an Aperol spritz” (one in all my previous reliables).
After crushing my spritz, I went again to the identical bartender. Nonetheless decided to examine some packing containers, I requested for a mint julep. “I’m afraid we don’t have mint,” he laughed, “you fancy boy!” Unwilling to accept one other spritz, I scurried again to Ming and Alina and requested them what to do. Alina prompt, “why don’t you simply present him the listing and see what he could make?”
In order that’s precisely what I did. Again on the bar, I briefly defined my mission to the bartender, handed him my telephone, and he scrolled by means of the listing. “Oh, I can do a couple of of those,” he mentioned, “You’re cool with any of them?” “Yeah, no matter you may make,” I replied. Quickly sufficient, I had a lemon drop martini in hand. (Alina tried mine after which ordered one for herself, however the bartender requested her, “Is that on your pal otherwise you? If it’s on your pal I’ll make him one thing new!”)
After gleefully ending the lemon drop (and singing “Y.M.C.A.” on the mic), I returned to the bar one final time. The bartender greeted me, “What’s subsequent for you, fancy?” I handed him my telephone once more, instructed him to “shock me,” and emerged with a New York bitter, which he defined was mainly a whiskey bitter with a crimson wine float. Typically all it’s important to do is ask.
On our method out that evening, the bartender bade me farewell—”bye, fancy!”—and I had a brand new favourite service expertise of my life.
Monkeying round
The monkey gland, that one odd duck within the Unforgettables part, was my white whale for some time. Obscure even to a seasoned bartender, it taught me that you may’t go ordering each drink on the listing willy-nilly. At one other dive, my pal Michael went as much as the bar and requested point-blank, “two monkey glands, please!” You can think about the bartender’s confusion.
A month or so later, at Gage & Tollner with fellow cocktail enjoyer Malaika, we had been bantering with the bartender about my listing. He had additionally by no means heard of the monkey gland, however he was curious, so we defined it to him, and the dialog moved on.
Simply as my rusty nail and Malaika’s French 75 neared completion, the bartender plopped down two cocktail glasses in entrance of us, every half-filled with a pinkish-orange liquid. “Two monkey glands,” he declared.
They had been fairly good—the orange and anise flavors complemented one another surprisingly properly, but additionally, they had been free, which makes every part style higher.
London calling
I saved cruising by means of the listing. A bare and well-known at Loss of life & Co. (the place the bare and well-known was invented). A Clover Membership on the Clover Membership (the place, I discovered, the Clover Membership was the truth is not invented).
Then in November, I used to be in London for a two-week work journey. This might mark a major turning level in my journey, for a number of causes.
For one, I used to be in a position to examine off the Spicy Fifty, one of many listing’s most perplexing inclusions, by going to creator Salvatore Calabrese’s personal Velvet bar on the Corinthia resort, seemingly the one place on the planet the place it’s served. The bar was actually posh—earlier than I had my drink (which was nice, although I kinda wished it was spicier), I used to be greeted with a complimentary tray of candied almonds, olives, and blue corn flatbread. However this luxurious was juxtaposed with an especially cursed cocktail menu, that includes an AI-generated picture for every drink (and one AI-generated Nelson Mandela quote):
I hit up the American Bar on the Savoy Lodge, London’s oldest extant cocktail bar, for an angel face (which was invented there) and a painstakingly garnished horse’s neck. I received a corpse reviver #2 on the confusingly equally named Bar Américain. Seems “American bar” simply means a cocktail bar, versus town’s many beer-centric pubs, as a result of cocktails are an American invention. That’s what I name a cultural victory.
However an important bar on this entire journey, and my new favourite bar on the planet, was Devil’s Whiskers in London’s Bethnal Inexperienced neighborhood. I went there on a whim, per Malaika’s suggestion, not realizing it will be a godsend for somebody attempting to finish this listing.
The factor about Devil’s Whiskers is that their printed menu, centered on basic and trendy basic cocktails, fully adjustments daily. This implies the bartenders have an encyclopedic information of the cocktail canon, they usually have the elements available to make any of the 900 drinks they rotate between.
At first, I scanned the menu and didn’t see something I wanted for the listing, so I panic-ordered a Jungle Chook (which wasn’t on the listing, however I had heard of it—it was nice). Then I made a decision to enterprise off the day’s menu: “Are you aware a… brandy crusta?” With out hesitation, the bartender Ollie mentioned, “positive, I can try this!” and confirmed I wished a sugared rim. Subsequent, I had a Tipperary, which he defined was an odd taste mixture that they’d solely actually listing on their menu on an unpopular day (Mia, one other bartender strolling by, chimed in, “Tipperary Tuesdays!”). I capped off the evening with an Alexander—“gin or brandy?”—a brandy Alexander, which made for an ideal dessert cocktail. All of it felt unreal, like a bar created in a lab for the only real objective of me ending this listing.
A spanner within the works
A pair days later, I used to be checking in on the IBA official cocktail listing web site, and I couldn’t imagine my eyes. There have been new cocktails on the listing.
It felt like a foul dream. Nonetheless in an unfamiliar metropolis, having simply been to this magical bar, now confronted with these freaky new cocktail names on an inventory I had grown so accustomed to. Wasn’t the final replace only some years in the past? (Since then, I’ve had a number of precise nightmares of the IBA including wherever from a couple of to some hundred new drinks to the listing.)
To be exact, there have been now 102 IBA official cocktails, up from the earlier 89. 3 had been faraway from the listing (together with the golden dream, which I had gotten at Attaboy, lengthy dwell the golden dream), and 16 new ones had been added (together with the Jungle Chook I had simply had at Devil’s Whiskers, good). I coped by tweeting by means of it, seemingly the primary particular person on the web to find the replace.
In actuality, and I solely discovered this a number of months later, the day I found the replace was the very same day it was added to the IBA web site. What I didn’t know was that there had been information articles in regards to the replace 8 months earlier, however they had been all in Italian as a result of the replace coincided with a brand new 101 IBA Cocktails e book, printed solely in Italian for no matter motive (the e book inexplicably leaves out the fernandito, fernet and Coke, perhaps as a result of 101 sounds extra enjoyable than 102).
It was now not true that each IBA official cocktail had its personal Wikipedia web page. A number of of the brand new ones did, just like the sherry cobbler, the porn star martini, and the South Aspect (which had beforehand been added and faraway from the listing), however now the listing was sprinkled with crimson hyperlinks. A lot of the new ones had been fairly legit trendy classics, however one caught out like a sore thumb.
It was known as, bafflingly, the IBA Tiki. A Google search revealed nearly no details about it. Its recipe had 9 elements, together with gengibre (simply Portuguese for ginger) and two particular Havana Membership rums, that are unlawful in the USA because of Cuban sanctions. Step apart, Ve.n.to, there’s a brand new ultimate boss on the town.
I later discovered that the drink’s recipe was commissioned by the IBA for his or her 2022 World Cocktail Championship, which was held in Cuba and, naturally, sponsored by Havana Membership. For some motive, they noticed match to make it cocktail quantity 101 of their 101 IBA Cocktails e book, and now it’s perpetually enshrined in cocktail historical past.
***
That evening, I did the one factor I may do, and I went again to Devil’s Whiskers. In reality, I ended up going there 4 nights that week, checking off an obscene 13 cocktails inside their taxidermied partitions. The bartenders had, clearly, by no means heard of the IBA Tiki (and didn’t have these rums available), however they knew loads of the opposite new additions off the dome.
It was additionally there that I found my love for the Porto flip, the one IBA official cocktail to include egg yolk. I wasn’t positive if Devil’s Whiskers would be capable of make one, however Mia’s face lit up once I ordered it—she had a mushy spot for flips, and as soon as I took a couple of sips, I knew it was one in all my new favorites too. (On the Sporcle quiz, the Porto flip at present sits as the only least-guessed IBA official cocktail.)
I left London with a brand new favourite cocktail, a brand new favourite bar, and a serviette itemizing 6 bars Mia beneficial in NYC.
82 down, 20 to go.
The ultimate stretch
At this level, it was exceedingly unlikely to come across the remaining cocktails on a bar menu. It was now a matter of searching for out explicit bars that supplied every drink, or failing that, going to actually good bars and hoping they may whip one up.
Such was the case with one new addition, the Brazilian rabo de galo (actually “tail of the cock,” or “cocktail”), which I ordered off-menu on the bitters bar Amor y Amargo to glorious impact—I’ve since had two extra of them at precise Brazilian restaurant Berimbau, and I’d simply place it subsequent to the Porto flip as a favourite on the listing.
I knocked out the Canchanchara at The Rum Bar BK, which miraculously had one on their menu. I received the brand new Chartreuse swizzle and pisco punch on the ice-obsessed Dutch Kills, which captures the Devil’s Whiskers magic in addition to any bar I’ve been to in New York Metropolis.
I used to be this near reserving a visit to Italy for the Ve.n.to, when immediately, googling “chamomile liqueur nyc,” I got here throughout Santi, a brand new Midtown Italian restaurant that simply so occurred to have the precise proper grappa and chamomile liqueur available. I went there with Alina, and the bartender, Emanuel, had by no means heard of a Ve.n.to, however he was decided to make me one—he even went on a wild goose chase to fetch a grape from the kitchen as a garnish, earlier than coming again with some scrumptious vanilla poached pears. Impeccable service, tasty drink, and cheaper than a flight to Italy.
The final a number of drinks had been extra of a crawl than a dash, lots of them an train in explaining the recipe to a bartender within the least annoying method attainable. An improvised paradise at Montréal’s Cloakroom. The very obscure Don’s particular daiquiri at Paradise Misplaced. A Russian spring punch, a British creation I actually ought to’ve gotten at Devil’s Whiskers, at Pricey Irving.
After which there was one.
Let’s have a Tiki
Up till this level, I had acquired each cocktail by ordering it at a bar (or a makeshift bar at a pal’s house). However for the 102nd and ultimate cocktail, the IBA Tiki, that wasn’t gonna work. Too obscure, too many elements, rums too unlawful in the USA. So I took issues into my very own arms.
The plan: collect all of the elements, batch-prepare some IBA Tikis, and throw maybe the world’s first IBA Tiki celebration. By the way, my twenty fourth birthday was shortly approaching, so I even had an event for the celebration.
The rums, after all, had been the arduous half. I can’t precisely clarify what I did in a weblog publish, however let’s simply say we had been about to have a few of the most trustworthy IBA Tikis that had ever been made in the USA. (Shoutouts to my mother and my sister, who each performed instrumental roles within the operation.)
The remainder of the elements had been easy sufficient. Amaretto, examine. Luxardo maraschino, examine. Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur, which the IBA Tiki is the one IBA official cocktail to incorporate), examine. The juices and purée and gengibre, examine. All that was left was to place all of it collectively.
And so I did. On Saturday, July twelfth, 2025, my twenty fourth birthday, about 20 folks gathered in a modest Brooklyn house. For the gang, we ready an industrial-sized IBA Tiki within the vessel of selection, a borg. However for my private drink, I combined it myself utilizing a cocktail shaker my mother received me for my birthday, and I served it for myself in a highball glass. After rigorously garnishing the cocktail (for the Wikipedia image) and making a speech to the attendees, it was time to drink it.
The IBA Tiki was nice. Everybody agreed it was nice. It was candy, bitter, nutty, and gingery, and we went by means of two full borgs of it. It might be a totally contrived recipe, and it might or could not should be on the listing, however one factor’s for positive: it was a becoming finish to the journey.
Closing time
102 cocktails, 7 states, 3 international locations, and 1 shock replace later, my work right here was achieved. However you possibly can’t drink 102 cocktails with out studying a couple of issues alongside the way in which.
One factor I discovered is that the IBA official cocktail listing is a bizarre listing. However that’s most likely certain to occur once you attempt to symbolize the entire world of cocktails in a single listing. The listing is likely to be a useful information for a bartender aiming to be well-rounded, however in a sensible sense, for regular folks simply going to bars and ordering drinks, it’s not all that helpful.
So from my analysis and my interactions with dozens of bartenders, I recategorized the listing right into a spectrum based mostly on identify recognition and ingredient availability. It’s most likely an oversimplification, and the angle is certainly US-centric, however I believe it makes for a great start line if you happen to’re questioning what to order:
Between the Canchanchara, IBA Tiki, Spicy Fifty, Ve.n.to, and the relative obscurity of a number of others, you actually must be attempting arduous if you wish to drink all 102. So far as I may discover, nobody else on-line has achieved so, a minimum of not for the reason that replace that introduced the IBA Tiki alongside. (It appears attainable that somebody excessive up on the IBA has tried one in all every part, however I guess they made a variety of them themselves.) (Replace after posting: it appears to be like like some people on Reddit have made their method by means of the listing!)
After I first launched into this journey, I didn’t actually know what I preferred in a cocktail. Now I do know I like bitters, and egg whites, and silky, stirred drinks on an enormous rock. I’ve discovered I’ve an affinity for Porto flips and rabo de galos. And I’ve discovered that Devil’s Whiskers is the perfect bar on the planet. (I additionally wrote its Wikipedia web page, plus ones for the Jungle Chook, the Chartreuse swizzle, and the IBA Tiki. There’s nonetheless work to be achieved on lots of final 12 months’s additions!)
A typical chorus on the IBA Tiki celebration was, “now that you simply’re achieved with cocktails, what’s subsequent?” Nicely, I’ve gotten fairly good at consuming cocktails, however now that I’ve some mixology tools, I’d as properly begin making some. And whereas I’m at it, I can enterprise into the countless expanse of cocktails that aren’t on the IBA listing.
I could also be achieved with one listing, however I’ll by no means cease checking packing containers. I’m ambiently working my method by means of the NYT’s 100 Greatest Eating places in New York Metropolis (18/100) and their 57 Sandwiches That Outline New York Metropolis (18/57). I wish to go to all 50 states (42/50) and all 63 nationwide parks (12/63). Who is aware of, perhaps I’ll attempt to pet each canine breed (???/292) or study each tune within the Actual E-book (???/400).
However the IBA official cocktail listing (102/102) is finished and dusted. Till the following replace, that’s.
– Adam
