With a décor characterised by vintage electrical circuit boards, rubber flooring and hanging light bulbs, Bar Ampère appears more like a clandestine R&R club in a factory than a watering hole for Melbourne’s thirsty urbanites.

After having its ban officially lifted here in 2009, the controversial anise-flavoured spirit has found itself a dedicated home at Absinthe Artisan.

Move over, speakeasy-style joints. Two new bars in New York show you can attract a serious drinking crowd with a single-minded focus on artisanal bitters and tequilas.

In 1998, divers discovered 2,000 bottles of the Heidsieck Monopole 1907 in the salvaged shipwreck of The Jonkoping, a Swedish shooner, sunk in the Baltic Sea in 1916.

With 53 different kinds of wines by the glass at The Tastings Room, guests will have a field day sampling and picking their favourite quaffs, instead of having to purchase them by the bottle first.

The junmai daiginjyo is touted to be Japan’s highest polished sake.

London’s The Worship Street Whistling Shop pays homage to the city’s popular gin culture of the 1820s, reinventing cocktails from that era.

Mike Soldner, who was previously running the Malt Vault in the basement of Ann Siang Road’s Screening Room, has decamped to another subterranean room in The Club Hotel a few doors away.

Francis Darroze’s prized spirits are being introduced as digestifs at the Raffles Grill for the first time.

Tucked in a quiet corridor in Chijmes, the Auld Alliance is the latest addition to the whisky bar scene.