The bar owner Ronnaporn Kanivichaporn at Nuss. Photographs by Fred Siggins. To say the food and drink scene in Bangkok is vibrant is a bit like saying the ocean is wet: true, but far from adequate to describe the depth, the colour, the dynamism, the diversity and the sheer funky deliciousness of it all. This place is Shangri-la for lovers of flavour, and while Thailand’s food has tantalised the tastebuds of the world for a generation, the still youthful and less lauded cocktail culture here is equally exciting.
Much of the international attention on Bangkok’s bars tends to focus on rooftop venues — places that, while boasting views perfect for the ’Gram and travel mag listicles, typically offer mediocre, overpriced cocktails. But down on ground level, amid the crazy traffic and overwhelming jumble of street stalls, a new generation of young local bartenders are bringing a decidedly Thai flavour to the city’s stunningly original craft cocktail scene.
Leading the charge is Ronnaporn Kanivichaporn, the co-owner of the cocktail bars Mahaniyom and Nuss in central Bangkok. Mahaniyom has the honour of being the first Bangkok bar to make it onto the World’s 50 Best Bars list that’s actually owned and operated by Thais rather than Westerners, and both bars represent the pinnacle of mixology here. The newly released list at Nuss is dedicated to locally produced Thai spirits, a first in a country where craft spirits production is still in its infancy. Each of the four signature cocktails changes seasonally, and each represents a different style of drink and a novel array of traditional Thai flavours.
The Ma Prao — Go Go cocktail showcases the tropical flavours of coconut and cacao with local Sod Chaeng Coconut Rum, brandy, artichoke liqueur, chocolate bitters, cacao husk syrup and fresh lemon. The combination is bright and refreshing while deeply complex and incredibly well-balanced. Tu-rian Colada is the dessert-style drink on offer this season, riffing on a piña colada with durian, Scotch, local pineapple spirit and a topping of pandan coconut foam. Despite the bold ingredients, these drinks aren’t over the top, each perfectly balanced for drinkability and representing the all-too-rare ideal of approachable creativity.
There’s a humility to these cocktails which seems to represent something special about the Thai character. Kanivichaporn isn’t trying to shock anyone or prove how clever he is, he just wants to share the best local flavours through his chosen craft. In part, that freedom in Bangkok’s cocktail scene comes from a lack of tradition, which leaves the door wide open to experimentation.
“The culture of cocktails is still new for Thai people,” Kanivichaporn says. “In Western culture, drinking cocktails has been part of the lifestyle for a long time, so people have their drinks that they like to order — I’m an old fashioned guy, I’m a Negroni guy, et cetera — so they might not explore different flavours.” Classic cocktails are “not that interesting” to Thai consumers, he continues, “because we don’t have the same cultural context for those drinks. So you need to come up with something that’s outstanding and creative.”
At Mahaniyom, each cocktail is based on a single natural product used in Thai cuisine, every element of which is teased out for its unique flavour and character. Some read relatively safe, such as a drink based on various parts of the banana plant, but still offer big surprises. The simply named Banana cocktail sees a base of grilled banana leaf-infused rye whiskey combined with sun-dried banana vermouth and green-banana-infused Campari. It’s a savoury old fashioned-style drink that exhibits a dry, nutty flavour instead of the usual overripe sweetness associated with banana; a dark chocolate bitterness through the finish leaves you wanting more, with notes of wood and smoke, and none of the astringency you might expect of banana skin. For the brave, there are also next-level drinks here constructed using products from beef, duck and squid. The Cow cocktail is subtle and not at all confronting, despite its nose-to-tail approach to drinking. It involves a red wine, Thai mulberry and miso milk punch, beef fat-washed rum and peppercorn-and-brown butter brandy, and is garnished with a foam of blue cheese and sake — light, fruity and totally unexpected.
Hidden up an unmarked staircase in Bangkok’s Chinatown, a bar called Tax inhabits an old warehouse with multicoloured layers of paint flaking from the walls. Here, the cocktails come with a side of politics. While Thailand relies heavily on tourism as a source of income, with drinking and dining a major draw, the government here still takes a somewhat draconian approach to alcohol taxation. In response to these rules and through experimentation with homemade vinegar made from leftover beer and wine during lockdown, the owners of Tax decided to open a bar with an entirely vinegar-based menu, partially dodging the government’s usual taxes on spirits. A standout is the cocktail Hops, a bittersweet combination of mango gin, a pineapple, passionfruit and hops shrub (a kind of vinegar-fruit syrup), house-made lager vinegar and honey. The current menu at Tax also includes a section of tea-inspired cocktails such as Oolong, with tequila and roasted cashews, and another, surprisingly, devoted to Guinness-based cocktails. The latter includes the Black, Dark & Stormy, which combines the draught-poured Irish stout with rum, ginger cordial and lime, making for the very darkest of stormies. To be able to balance wonderful ambience and service with a high level of creativity, a political message, tongue-in-cheek playfulness and genuinely delectable cocktails is no mean feat. Here, it feels instinctive.
“The most interesting story in the cocktail scene here is how a whole generation of bartenders are learning by making mistakes,” says Rob Scott, the Asia Pacific brand ambassador for Flor de Caña rum and an Australian expat living in Bangkok. “They’re breaking rules because they didn’t learn them in the first place, and the end result is very creative and outside the box of normality or expectation in so many ways.”
A frequent disappointment for me, as a longtime lover of cocktail culture, is the homogeneity of the bars declared the world’s “best”. Often, a country’s most lauded cocktail venues say little about their location; once you walk through the doors and sit down, you could be anywhere in the world. That’s what’s so exciting about the craft cocktail scene in the Thai capital. Being here, tasting these drinks, experiencing this decidedly Thai style of hospitality, you could be nowhere else except beautiful, delicious Bangkok.
