Inside Cape Town’s rise as a global cocktail hub (AJABU Festival)
Cape Town’s Inner City raises the bar with international festival collaboration
The Mission for Inner City Cape Town supports the November edition of the internationally celebrated AJABU Cocktail & Spirits Festival, inviting locals and visitors to explore the CBD through eight days of bar takeovers, collaborations, and celebration.
Cape Town, South Africa (26 October 2026): Fresh from being named the world’s most beautiful city for 2026 by Time Out, which also ranked it sixth in its World’s Best Cities list and 11th for food, Cape Town is getting ready to welcome the world’s bartenders.
From 14 to 22 November, AJABU Cocktail & Spirits Festival returns to the Mother City, supported by The Mission for Inner City Cape Town, bringing Africa’s most exciting bar talent together with leading international names across multiple venues. The collaboration gives locals and visitors another reason to move through the city, discover new spaces and experience the CBD as a destination in its own right.
“Events like AJABU play an important role in bringing people into the Inner City and encouraging them to experience it differently,” says Brad Armitage, co-founder of The Mission for Inner City Cape Town. “A vibrant city is one where people want to walk between venues, discover places they may not have visited before and spend time enjoying what the city has to offer. That’s exactly the kind of energy we want to help build in Cape Town: a city that feels alive, welcoming and worth exploring.”
AJABU co-founder Colin Asare-Appiah agrees. “Cape Town became AJABU’s home because this city knows how to make people feel welcome. Working with The Mission helps us open up the Inner City to our visiting bartenders and guests, so they can walk from one bar
Founded by Ghanaian bartender Asare-Appiah and longtime collaborator Mark Talbot Holmes, AJABU takes its name from the Swahili word for ‘something wondrous’. The twice-yearly Pan-African festival drew about 2,000 attendees in March and expects an even larger audience in November.
Confirmed participants include Sin + Tax and Obscura (Johannesburg), alongside guest teams from Satan’s Whiskers (London), KEES (New York), HERO (Nairobi), Front/Back (Accra) and La Mamounia (Marrakesh), among others. Participating bars will also serve their own take on the Porn Star Martini for half price (R86), marking 25 years since Ghanaian bartender Douglas Ankrah created the modern classic.
Festival details
AJABU Tasting Table Experience: Saturday 14 November, European Bartender School, Woodstock. Two sessions, 11 am to 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm to 7 pm. Tickets R250.
Festival pass (14 to 22 November): Access to participating bars and events all week, plus entry into a draw for a trip to Goa, India, as a guest of John Paul Whisky Distillery. General access: R150.
Enjoy the best of both with a combo pass for R350.
Tickets and programme information are available through Quicket and the AJABU website.
