Bangkok Bars Are Harnessing the Rising Wave of Boutique Thai Liquors

At Nuss Bar, a cocktail lounge nestled in Bangkok’s romantic Old Town district owned by award-winning bartender Ronnaporn Kanivichaporn and celebrity chef ThiTid “Ton” Tassanakajohn, every fanciful creation utilizes homegrown Thai craft liquors to their best advantage. The seasonal menu plays on classic cocktails with riffs such as a lychee gimlet with Mork Kung Muang Lychee Spirits; a corn and coffee white Negroni with Sakthong Corn spirits and Nuss Bar Homemade Coffee Liqueur; and a Makmao sour with Winyaan Calamansi Spirits, Makmao Berry Juice, and Rice Paddy Herb. 

Although Nuss Bar is one of the best in the game, it’s far from alone — bars all over Bangkok and Chiang Mai are producing innovative cocktails that put the focus on local liquors.

The Thai craft liquor scene is a recent phenomenon, growing over the past decade despite stifling alcohol production laws designed for the advantage of mega-producers. Thailand issues two types of distilling licenses known as “special” and “community.” Special licenses have the fewest restrictions and allow distillers to export their products, but the rules — such as a minimum capacity of 30,000 liters per day and an environmental license — are set well above the reach of smaller distillers. Community licenses are easier to obtain but essentially limit distilleries to a micro level.

“In Thailand you have to be either very big or extremely small,” says Niks Anuman, who co-owns micro-distillery Issan Rum. To his point, ThaiBev, maker of rums and whiskeys like SamSong, Mekhong, and Hong Thong, produces nearly 90% of the country’s liquor.

Despite such stringent laws, there are more than 100 Thai microdistilleries. Producers like Issan Rum, Saneha Gin, and Siam Whiskey, are crafting a rich variety of rums, gins, and whiskeys — even if they’re technically not permitted to label them as such. This is because in Thailand, all liquor is either lao khao (white spirit) or lao see (brown spirit), and only big distillers are allowed the aging processes that define a liquid as lao see.

It’s a shame, because the country’s abundant agriculture lends itself to spirit production. Issan Rum is named after the brand's distillery in the Issan province bordering Laos, which grows the sugarcane that’s turned into rum. The maker also has a distillery in the southern island of Sam Oui that produces rum out of molasses. Anuman says Issan rum from the northern distillery is as fresh as you can get. The sugarcane is sourced from within a six-mile radius, and during sugarcane season (which lasts three months) they juice around one ton of sugarcane per day. The juice is fermented for two to three days before being distilled in a copper still, then diluted down to 40% ABV per Thai law. Regulations limit the distillery’s energy output to 5 horsepower, which combined with the seasonal sugarcane harvest, means Issan Rum can only release around 10,000 bottles a year.

“Most other rums use frozen sugarcane juice,” says Anuman. “If you taste Issan rum it’s super fresh, it’s grassy, it’s the flavor of sugarcane, yet the sweetness is there… It doesn’t get any fresher than this.”

Craft liquors like Issan Rum appear regularly in Bangkok’s creative cocktail scene. This may be partially attributed to Thailand’s extremely high alcohol tariffs (though the country recently reduced the wine import tax by 54% and spirits tax by 10%). With a rich homegrown spirits culture and thriving cocktail scene, it stands to reason for bartenders to utilize the farm-to-table liquors where possible.

“I think it was quite obvious for us to use local spirits,” says Anuman.

The owner of five Bangkok bars who runs the highly competitive Bangkok Bar Show, Anuman highlights the Issan Coco, a drink served at his Asia Today bar, as exemplifying Thailand’s agricultural abundance in its cocktail scene. Bartenders crack open a fresh coconut and pour in rum that was sugarcane juice just a few days earlier.

“Thailand has one of the tastiest varieties of coconut… it’s like bartender’s Gatorade,” says Anuman.

Kanivichaporn, whose bar Mahaniyom was No.19 on The World’s 50 Best Bars in 2023 and No.18 on Asia’s 50 Best Bars in 2024, considers Thai cocktails as the perfect storm of international innovation and culinary inspiration. He believes the next big trend will be savory cocktails.

“We grow up with Thai food… We can do many flavors, and we’re good at balancing all the flavors. Our palates are trained,” says Kanivachaporn.

Thailand passed a bill in 2022 that allows community license holders to apply for a special medium-sized distillery license so they can raise their facility’s capacity to 50 horsepower and employ up to 50 workers. Anuman has applied for the license. Though there is a lot of red tape and results have been long pending, Anuman believes that regulatory relaxation will raise the profile of local spirits in the Thai cocktail scene even more.

“We’re trying to lobby a lot of people, fight from inside the government. From here it can only get better,” he says. “You’ll only see the Thai spirit industry improve from here.”