The 42 Best Places to Drink in Thailand

The menu at this cocktail bar is organized like a tasting dinner, moving through starters, mains, and afters, with combinations like beef and onion or almond and ylang-ylang landing in your glass instead of on a plate. Seating is arranged so guests face each other across a lit surface, giving the room the feel of an omakase counter or possibly a very stylish interrogation. Ranked in the World's 50 Best Bars, it helped push Bangkok's bar scene toward the savory and strange.

A cocktail bar inside the Four Seasons Bangkok that has quietly pivoted to Mexico, so the drinks now run on agave, spice, and cultural mythology. Expect a Frida Kahlo-inspired sour and the kind of Santana highball that sounds like a joke until you taste it. Non-drinkers get tepache and horchata instead of the usual sad sparkling water. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars and Asia's 50 Best Bars.

The name comes from the physics of waves, sound and ocean both, which tells you something about how seriously this cocktail bar takes its own ideas. The bartender behind it ran both Vesper and Backstage before opening here on Thong Lo's second floor, and the drinks carry that pedigree, landing on Asia's 50 Best Bars at number five. Playful without being gimmicky, and worth lingering over.

A speakeasy tucked inside a Chinatown shophouse, Opium takes its name from the den that allegedly occupied the space before someone decided cocktails were a more defensible business model. The two-floor bar leans into "liquid surreality," a seasonal menu built around clever twists on classics. It holds a spot on Asia's 50 Best Bars and the World's 50 Best Bars list. The vibe is lush and conspiratorial, which, given the history, feels about right.

The cocktail menu at this colonial mansion bar traces the building's life through each drink, from Chinese merchant to Soviet Embassy to Bangkok landmark. It's a cocktail bar inside the W Bangkok with the bones to justify the concept. A Bloody Maria built around pad krapao ingredients arrives with a frozen tomato standing in for ice. A page of Louis XIII pours starts at 600 a glass, which is one way to mark a Tuesday. Asia's 50 Best Bars lands it at number 48.

The name comes from Bond's martini order, which sets the tone pretty well for this cocktail bar on Convent Road. The menu is organized on a flavor map, running from sweet to dry and refreshing to spirituous, so choosing a drink becomes a conversation rather than a guess. It's chic without making you feel like you're on trial, and the drinks are serious. Asia's 50 Best Bars has it at number 29.

The forest green and gold palette announced the dress code before the menu did. Firefly is the lobby bar of the Sindhorn Kempinski, where live jazz sets the tone for evenings that run from serious whisky to cocktails that take a few liberties. A Casa del Habano smoking parlor sits just off the main room for anyone who wants to stretch the evening further. It landed on Asia's 50 Best Bars list, which tracks for a room this considered.

A neon tiger presides over walls that can't decide between Bangkok street culture and a Moroccan souk, and somehow the combination works. This cocktail bar sits inside a nose-to-tail restaurant and borrows the concept: each drink is named for a single ingredient, then built around it in multiple ways. Pomelo, coconut, squid, and cow all get their turn. It's a named Discovery on Asia's 50 Best Bars list, which explains the curious, well-dressed crowd making their way upstairs.

Absinthe flows freely at this dimly lit, three-floor cocktail bar tucked into a Sathon alley, where exposed brick and contemporary art set a mood somewhere between Paris and a jazz club you weren't supposed to find. There's a rooftop bar for when the nooks and crannies feel too cosy, live jazz on rotation, and signature cocktails alongside French bistro bites. It earned a spot on The 50 Discovery list, which tracks where the scene is heading.

The name above the heavy wooden door tends to raise an eyebrow before you've even ordered, which may be the point. Inside this gin bar on Soi Nana, the whole concept runs in deliberate contrast to Bangkok's endless speakeasy scene: no passwords, no theater, just a serious commitment to gin. The house infusions lean on local ingredients, and the gin and tonics are built with care. Book ahead; it fills up.

A bronze spiral staircase on the 56th floor of a Bangkok skyscraper sets the tone for this cocktail bar, where art deco meets art nouveau and the city sprawls out below in every direction. The drinks program pulls from a 1935 Waldorf cocktail book, so the pours run spirit-forward and serious. The kind of place where the view does half the work, but the bartenders are clearly doing the other half.

A cocktail bar on the 11th floor of the akyra Thonglor, where old typewriters and printing curios share space with a glassy, capsule-lit back bar and views of Bangkok glittering below. The mix of nostalgia and neon shouldn't work, but somehow the room holds it together. The drinks list pulls from Prohibition-era spirits, handled by a bartender who came up through Vesper, one of the city's more serious cocktail rooms.

A featureless door on Sukhumvit 31, a curtain to pull back, and suddenly you're in a candlelit two-storey shophouse cocktail bar named after a Chet Baker track, which tells you most of what you need to know. From the team behind Bangkok speakeasies Ku Bar and Sugar Ray, the room is retro-cosy and unhurried, built for long rounds and live jazz rather than anything louder. The 50 Best Discoveries list gave it a nod.

Sixth floor of an old office block on Charoen Krung, which is exactly the kind of place you'd walk past twice before a local grabbed your arm. Charmkrung is a Thai wine bar built around sharing plates, run by the team behind Charmgang, the Yaowarat spot known for its curries. The bar stools face an open kitchen that stays loud and busy well into the night, which is where you want to be sitting.

You find this cocktail bar by walking through a sports bar and past a photo booth, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. The same team behind the hidden #FindTheLockerRoom set this one up, and the contrast is deliberate: velvet banquettes, leather seating, and a black marble bar replace whatever was happening out front. The menu pairs classics with Thai riffs, and the 50 Best Discoveries list has taken note.

You get in through a phone booth in a Bangkok back alley, which sets the tone pretty squarely. Inside, this cocktail bar is dressed as 1940s Havana, and the commitment runs deep: distressed walls, off-kilter frames, vintage couches, cigars, and Latin music doing all the heavy lifting. The cocktail list moves through pre- and post-revolution Cuba, with daiquiris at the center. A 50 Discovery pick.

Ten seats, all at the bar, and the cocktail list changes every week, so regulars treat each visit like a puzzle. This small Bangkok cocktail bar from the team behind Sugar Ray keeps things unhurried and a little nerdy, with chess boards, vinyl shelves, and a turntable doing most of the decorating. The drinks riff on classics without being smug about it, and the bar snacks are taken more seriously than they need to be. Book ahead.

A vinyl shop stocking 6,000 records is your actual entrance to this cocktail bar on the 30th floor of the Rosewood Bangkok. The conceit is a mid-century home recording studio filtered through Great Gatsby glamour: floor-to-ceiling sloping glass, two art deco lounges, and a spiral staircase up to a cigar lounge. Ask the DJ to spin whatever you pull from the shelves. A 50 Discovery from The World's 50 Best Bars.

A cocktail bar with a name this unhinged earns some goodwill before anyone orders a drink. Tucked inside the Octo Seafood Bar complex on Sukhumvit Soi 24, Sugar Ray went minimalist in its new digs but kept the looseness intact. Sit at the counter if you can; the bartenders reward the audience. Asian-inflected signatures lean on ginseng, pandan, and tea-infused gin. A 50 Best Discovery pick.

A row of steel lockers in an alleyway off Thonglor is the door, which tells you everything about the vibe inside this tiny speakeasy. The cocktail menu works through pop culture decades, so you might sip something with foam styled after a Troll doll's hair while Cyndi Lauper plays overhead. It's dark, a little absurd, and completely in on the joke. The Infatuation named it one of Bangkok's 20 best bars.

Wild honey sourced from gatherers across Thailand is the organizing principle of this cocktail bar on Rama IV, and the team takes that brief seriously. Every drink tests how far the ingredient can stretch before tipping sweet, which turns out to be further than expected. The beeswax mug holding the Eastern Honey is a prop worth keeping intact. Difford's Guide lists it, and The Infatuation put it on their Bangkok bar roundup.

A cocktail bar in the heart of Chinatown that leans into the neighborhood's past, with low lighting, vintage details, and a menu that folds Chinese ingredients into familiar formats. The gin and tonic gets Chéngzi orange and sesame; the Negroni picks up Chinese ginseng. The kitchen is serious enough that duck wontons with homemade chili oil can pass for dinner. Grab a seat early if you want to be outside, because by sunset the terrace is gone.

A tiki bar meets American backyard barbecue on the 40th floor of Kimpton Maa-Lai, which is a more coherent idea than it sounds. Tropical cocktails, a DJ running electro-funk, and a kitchen open past 1am mean no one has to leave early if they don't want to. Grab an outdoor table if the weather cooperates and the city sprawls out below you.

A hotel cocktail lounge where the menu is organized around historic social clubs, which sounds like a gimmick until you're halfway through a Jungle Bird built with three rums and reconsidering everything. The bartenders have strong opinions about the classics, shaking Sazeracs and adding soda to the Tom Collins before anything else goes in. Dress up a little, order something you think you know, and see if they've changed your mind about it.

Gins are kept cold behind the bar, but the piano on stage runs warm all night at this red-soaked cocktail bar inside Velaa Sindhorn Village. The room leans full cabaret, and the cocktail menu follows suit, with drinks built around jazz history and cultural lore from across the globe. By late evening, people are on their feet, which says something about the live performances and the pours in equal measure.

The durian colada is either the bravest cocktail in Bangkok or a personal challenge, depending on your feelings about salty durian foam. This cocktail bar on Sukhumvit 37 runs on disco-funk and an unapologetic willingness to put curry powder in a drink. A khao soi cocktail, bar snacks that include chicken wings stuffed with fermented pork sausage, and a disco ball overhead make for a room where nobody is standing still.

The third floor of a former printing house, bare cement walls and iron-grating windows left exactly as found. Ku Bar is a speakeasy-style cocktail bar that leans into the brutalist bones of old Thai architecture rather than papering over them. The menu rotates around whatever's good at the market, so the drinks shift with the season. Instagram makes it look intimidating, but the vibe is easygoing once you're up there.

A cocktail bar in Thong Lo where the menu reads like a Bangkok street-food tour, except the chicken rice arrives as a fizzy drink made with chicken skin-infused vodka and miso-ginger soda. The space is sleek and minimal, and the floor sits higher than the back of the bar, so you face the bartenders eye-to-eye, which feels oddly equalizing when you're sipping a mango sticky rice cocktail and reconsidering your life choices.

Every cocktail here is named after a single ingredient, then built from every part of it, cornsilk and all. Mahaniyom is a sustainability-forward cocktail bar in Bangkok where the kitchen-science ambition is worn lightly enough that the drinks still sound fun. The Cow, a savory-sweet blend of beef fat, brown butter, and blue cheese foam, is exactly the kind of thing you'd describe to someone the next day and watch their face move through several emotions.

A cocktail bar built around the idea that more people should be listening to vinyl, and it shows: the DJs at the record booth chat with nearby tables as they spin soul and hip-hop. The menu sorts drinks by mood and sensation rather than spirit, so you might find a warm gin and earl grey number filed under "gentle cuddles." The bartenders are the kind who actually want to talk, which keeps the whole thing from feeling precious.

Bartenders here breathe fire, literally spin bottles, and set the bar itself alight, so yes, it's that kind of night. This Cuban-tiki cocktail bar on Silom pulls both locals and visitors deep into afterparty territory, with a pandan coconut daiquiri and a DJ doing most of the convincing. A buy-one-get-one deal runs before nine, and the Mexican food stall out front, same owner, is hard to walk past without ordering something.

A cocktail bar in Pom Prap where the drinks lean on Thai herbal spirits and regional liqueurs you won't find on a standard back bar, and a live piphat ensemble or molam band fills the room on a given night. Those bands normally play theaters, so catching one here feels like an accidental stumble into something. Skewers come off a charcoal stove, rice arrives in bamboo. The whole thing is aggressively, cheerfully Thai, and the room knows it.

Tiger-skin prints and bamboo furniture set the tone at this hotel bar inside Bangkok's Mandarin Oriental, where the house cocktail menu draws its flavors from Thailand's five regions. It's been a fixture of the city's live jazz scene for long enough that the sightlines to the stage feel deliberate. Stylish bartenders in leather aprons take it seriously, which helps, given that the room is already doing a lot of atmospheric heavy lifting on its own.

A giant LED tree rises through the center of the main bar on the 46th floor of the T-One Building, which tells you most of what you need to know about Tichuca. It's a rooftop bar with 360-degree views over Bangkok, forest-themed decor that commits harder than it probably should, a second bar at an even higher vantage point, and a tequila list long enough to make the elevator ride down genuinely interesting.