Bar crawl alert: four bars in Chinatown have launched new cocktail menus.
Soi Nana’s row of venerated bars — Teens of Thailand, Asia Today, Tax, and Independence — are raising their game with a new line-up of cocktails drawn from each bar’s specific area of expertise. In other words, it’s a perfect excuse to roam around the neighborhood for a bit of bar-hopping action.
If you are new to the area and looking for more straightforward drinks, head to Teens of Thailand, where most of the cocktails focus on variations of gin and tonic. You can try their Chili-Salted Pineapple (THB380), a gin-based cocktail that reimagines Bangkok’s old-time fruit cart favorite using Bombay Sapphire, chili, and salted pineapple tonic cordial topped with soda and a piece of salted pineapple.
For a more adventurous night, you should head over to Asia Today, just a stone’s throw away. The drinks here are mostly focused on wild honey and other rare ingredients found locally. This is very noticeable in drinks like their new Bitter Have My Moni (THB440), a simple and refreshing cocktail with a mix of bitter cerana honey, gin, house pickled cherry liquor, blanc vermouth, verjus, and Italian bitters. A torch ginger flower gets dropped on top as a garnish, but it’s perfectly edible and adds a fun, fizzy tang to the drink’s taste.
From there, you can walk across the street to Tax, where the pungent flavors really kick things up a notch — you’ll find an unusual special ingredient, vinegar, in all of their offbeat creations.
A cascade of flavors is what you’ll get out of Tax’s bold cocktails such as the Breakfast (THB460), featuring a tangy mixture of gin, cumin, orange, shrub (a blend of sugar and vinegar), pink peppercorn, and Thai soy sauce brand Maggi. The sour part hits hard at first, and then the fatty, salty, and sharp flavors follow to mellow things out surprisingly well.
Wine aficionados can stop by at the team’s latest dive bar, Independence — arguably the least snobbish wine bar in Bangkok. Go for their Fake Ass Negroni (THB400), where the classic gets twisted with the addition of fruity Niepoort Ruby, dry sherry, Sacred Rosehip, and Contratto Bitter.
All the bars are located in Soi Nana, a few minutes’ walk from MRT Hua Lamphong. Doors open at 7pm and stay open until late.
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