The best bars in Bath

Linger long enough for the coachloads of camera-snapping tourists to leave and for the museums to shut up shop, and you’ll be rewarded with the awakening of Bath’s best watering holes as the sun sets on the city. Hidden down its honey-coloured alleyways or reached via winding metal staircases leading underground, these are the places you might have unwittingly walked past earlier in the day. Much like Bath’s burgeoning food scene, there’s a growing number of sophisticated spots to nurse a nightcap here, perfectly low-lit and with a hint of humour. Somerset breweries are thrown into the spotlight and cocktail menus are fiendishly inventive, but sometimes it’s just a cool pint of cider and a toast to the West Country that does the trick. As The Wurzels croon: “I am a cider drinker/ It soothes all me troubles away.”

The Bath Distillery Gin Bar

Best bar in Bath for: gin cocktails

When the Bath Gin Distillery opened nearly a decade ago, it heralded the first time gin had been distilled in the city for over 250 years, after the 18th century Gin Act hindered production here. Tours of the distillery on Monmouth Place can be booked, but it’s the bar tucked on the cobbled Queen Street that you need to make a beeline for after dark. As well as the Bath Gin collection (packed with botanicals from bitter orange to kaffir lime leaf and English coriander), shelves are lined with 230 gins from distilleries across the world to try. And then there are the witty cocktails to work your way through: a Daylight Shrobbery with strawberry shrub perhaps, or a Gin Austen for the literary lovers. Madeleine Silver

Address: The Bath Distillery Gin Bar, 2-3 Queen Street Bath BA1 1HE
Website: thebathgincompany.co.uk

Dos Dedos

Best bar in Bath for: tequila and tacos

Here is the kind of noisy place where the paint is deliberately peeling, the fairy lights are slung low and the barrel tables a tiny bit sticky in a way that guarantees a good time. On the cobbled Bartlett Street, which weaves its way up to the smartest addresses in town, it’s a respite from any Georgian grandeur, with tequila bottles lining the walls poised for action. The bravest take it straight up with just salt and lime to ease the eye watering but there are cocktails too (give the Oil Change a go, ‘a dirty kimchi Mezcal Martini’), cool bottles of Pacifico and tacos made by The Little Tortilleria in Bristol and stacked high with braised beef to keep the revelry in check. Madeleine Silver

Address: Dos Dedos, Edgar Mews, Bartlett St, Bath BA1 2QZ
Website: dosdedos.co.uk

Walcot House

Best bar in Bath for: tempting bar snacks

The Dilly Bar at Walcot House morphs from a café by day to a cocktail lounge by night, where locals pull up a leather stool at the bar for a rosé and the best kind of bar snack supper to accompany a post-work debrief. On the menu might be wild mushroom arancini, perhaps, Cantabrian anchovies, or whipped and smoked cod’s roe with fennel crackers. When something stronger beckons, the cocktail list is lengthy and reassuringly fiery (a Paddington Tea Party isn’t as innocent as it sounds…) and the mocktails are cleverly crafted to lull you into the party spirit (try the Pear Drop, with Lyre’s White Cane, pear syrup and lime). To ramp things up, head downstairs to the low-lit Bread & Jam bar with its wine-coloured banquettes, which comes alive every Friday and Saturday night with DJs, as well as jazz nights on the last Friday of every month. Madeleine Silver