Happy Hour

The south coast of Sri Lanka is one of our favorite places in Asia, and this adorable, community-minded surf town is a prime example of why.

These Hong Kong restaurants are tempting our tummies with delicious new veggie menus. Consider this your kale to action.

These bars reduce, reuse and recycle, plus replant the rainforest on the path to delicious drinks. Here are a few lessons in eco-mixology, complete with climate-conscious cocktail recipes.

Front Room in Waldorf Astoria Bangkok has reopened with comfort classics that’ll warm your soul.

Hotels are bringing restaurant service and bar vibes into your suite. So you can drink, social-distance and forget about the dishes.

A mash-up of Malay, Chinese, European, and Indigenous influences, Malaysian food was fusion cooking before foodies started using the word.

Everyone knows gin-and-tonic is good for you. But have you ever considered what a truly global invention it is?

Happy hour lives on.

Once a blip on the radar between KL and Penang, Ipoh now has a bar scene to rival that of both cities.

A fleet of luxury boats is plying Bangkok with some of the classiest cocktail hours in town and meals that’ll sate the most selective sailors.

Rojak gin? Fancy Thai rum? Bring these bottles home instead of the elephant print pants.

From a funky wine spot in Hong Kong to a bar inspired by Indian heritage in Singapore, these are the new spots where you’ll probably find us drinking these days.

These stylish watering holes at InterContinental resorts serve up drinks with a view.

With a mini amphitheater in the middle of the city, the team behind award-winning Rabbit Hole has turned the speakeasy trend on its head— or just taken it back a century, to the Jazz Age.

Perched on Nan Shan’s 48th floor is Cé La Vi, a ritzy rooftop lounge attracting the city’s young, hip and well-heeled like bees to a nine-meter-long copper-clad bar.

Occupying the 12th floor of the recently opened Kimpton Da’an hotel, restaurant-slash-bar The Tavernist offers yet another reason to venture around this district after dark.

Bangkok’s newest sky-high venue has just opened for lunch on the 76th floor of the Kingpower MahaNakhon building.

Shaking off its polarized rep—too seedy, or too snooty—Manila’s nightlife has now staked out an edgy middle ground awash with bars fueled as much by refined menus as free-flow fun.

Co-founder Livesey and company take a traditional German gose (a salty/sour beer) and mix in sake ingredients and local peach to create a distinctly Japanese beer rooted in German traditions.

Pizza-and-beer pioneer Magpie helped make craft beer a thing in South Korea with its pale ale, an easy-drinking brew with hints of apricot that seven years on is still its most popular.

Asia’s craft suds scene keeps getting better. Craig Sauers checks in with six exciting breweries using local flavors and ingredients to push beer boundaries.

Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s seminal novel, John Pemberton turned his homebrewing hobby into a full-time profession in 2015. Vietnamese beer hasn’t been the same since.

If Hong Kong’s craft beer is finally getting the global attention it deserves, thank Rohit Dugar. His brewery Young Master has continually pushed the boundaries since opening five years ago. Now, the brand hosts an international beer festival and boasts a huge barrel-aging program that produces some wild creations.

Taihu might be Asia’s most progressive brewery. The bathrooms are gender neutral, for starters, and when it comes to beer, head brewer Winnie Hsu is as relentless in her devotion to quality as she is in her rejection of traditional boundaries.

Young, discerning cocktail drinkers and single-malt connoisseurs are raising the stakes in Vietnam. Connla Stokes sips his way to the source of this intoxicating tale.

“We make cocktails for people who usually order beer,” says Angus Zou, the brains behind Draft Land. After building a name for himself at Alchemy, a trailblazer in Taipei’s speakeasy scene, he opened this taproom in 2018 to take the fuss out of ordering a mixed drink.

Like most speakeasies worth their salt, the first rule of Staff Only Club was, “do not tell anyone.” But good news travels fast, and soon after opening late last year, this members-only club became Taipei’s worst-kept secret.

This tiny cocktail kitchen in buzzy Da’an district actually serves up a full culinary experience. In his space of dimly lit booths around a stage-like bar, owner Seven Yi takes guests on a two-hour tasting journey.

On the 70th floor of Swissotel, The Stamford, the heights that offer killer views act as a metaphor for the theme of elevation that divides the 12-cocktail menu into the categories of sea, rainforest, high desert and alpine. Salty sips Samphire and Buckthorn Cliff change to fruity and herbal gems such as The Shaman (which […]

Mandarin Oriental Singapore’s sophisticated bar has a beguiling cocktail list inspired by the flavors and cultures in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean and the Coral Sea.

Fly high in this live-music bar decorated with golden-age-of-travel paraphernalia, including a cabinet of curiosities featuring rare and exotic spirits (go ahead, ask for a tasting shot). Bartender Andy Griffiths has a few kitchen shenanigans up his sleeve.

Don’t let this bar’s western outskirts address nor its hidden location in the wine-and-spirits section of a supermarket deter your hunt for it. From toasted sesame seeds in honey lining the glass of a Beehive to a bee smoker sending delicate sandalwood wafts into the Rhubino cocktail with tart rhubarb notes, bar manager Anton Gornev […]

What you see is not what you get at this rooftop bar with smashing sunset skyline views. New head bartender Jorge Conde conjures up flavor illusions such as a clear Bloody Mary and his weirdly delicious Dali’s Self Portrait, which completely befuddles your mind about the typical Manhattan, as he makes his twist on it […]

Border-jumping tipples and nibbles with an Oriental twist is the mission statement from Italian-Filipino mixologist eye-candy Davide Boncimino. Shoot for the unorthodox (Not) Classic PBJ concocted from peanut butter fat–washed Glenfiddich whisky and caramelized kumquat liqueur, which comes with a bamboo tray of three smoked chocolate-coated macadamia nuts and chili puree.

Industry veteran Kamil Foltan and his wife Zurina Bryant run this lab- bar on the upper floor of a shophouse, spinning odd, local ingredients such as curry leaves, bananas and jackfruits into brilliantly balanced drinks that leave a lingering, often unforgettable, aftertaste.

Sour-cream potato chips, sesame oil and burnt butter are just some of the homey ingredients lending their whiffs to the cocktail list of JAM restaurant and bar in chichi Dempsey’s lifestyle space Siri House.

Meet some of the cool women shaking things up in Southeast Asia’s best drinking dens.

From saucy to wacky, cleverly concocted cocktails are bringing kitchen techniques behind the bar.

By Shamilee Vallu. MOVE OVER, SINGAPORE SLING—new twists on gin have edged out the tourist go-to as the nation’s de rigueur drink. Local bars such as Native infuse gin with everything from matcha to laksa leaf, while others, like Atlas (with its staggering 1,000-plus labels), build menus around their sizable collections of mother’s ruin. Now, […]

Downtown’s artsiest little cocktail bar is an eclectic affair. You might catch a stand-up comedy act, live band, or simply a DJ playing mellow electronica melodies on the higher, seventh floor—that’s also the ideal spot to enjoy sundowners with a cooling breeze coming off the Saigon river.

Wander up the well-lit staircase at 59 Dong Du to find this modern haven of sake and small plates with a shared-table concept.

Millers Point, a dockworker enclave that dates from the early 1900s, is a character-filled neighborhood best explored by touring its bars.

The Southeast Asian City of Angels definitely looks its best from high up in the sky. Soak in the stellar panoramas from these stylish watering holes.

From snazzy cabaret clubs to street vendor-dessert inspired cocktails, Mark Lean trains his beer (or margarita) goggles on Kuala Lumpur’s evolving bar scene.

Catching the spirit of collaboration, Asian breweries are teaming up with bold beer hounds, artisanal chocolatiers, coffee roasters, and more to produce some serious suds.