Teens of Thailand

Teens of Thailand, an inverse guide

Teens of Thailand is a tiny gin bar on Chinatown's Soi Nana - approximately fourteen seats, walls covered in street-art-style murals, a long marble bar, and a drinks programme built around gin and Thai-grown botanicals. It has been a fixture of Bangkok's small-room cocktail scene since 2015, has fed a generation of bartenders into the city's larger venues, and is the right place to spend a slow ninety minutes if you can get past the door. The problem with most first visits is that people get it wrong in predictable ways. Here is what not to do.

1. don't
   Arrive at 9pm.
   Bangkok's small bars do not absorb crowds. Teens of Thailand has fourteen seats, no reservations, and a queue policy that on a busy night sees you waiting outside for an hour. Arrive at 7pm or before 8.30; you will walk straight in. The bar does not improve at 9.30 - it just gets fuller.
2. don't
   Order a Negroni.
   You can. They will make you one. But the menu's reason to exist is the gin-and-Thai-botanical work the bar has been refining for nearly a decade. Order the Honey Highball (gin, longan honey, lemon, soda) or a Cha Yen Gimlet (cold-brewed Thai tea, gin, lime). The Negroni is a competent drink in a bar that does many more interesting things.
3. don't
   Try to talk through the bartender's pour.
   The bartenders here are doing real work and the bar is small. Conversation between drinks is welcome; conversation while a stirred cocktail is being built is not. Sit, watch the pour, then ask the question.
4. don't
   Skip the food next door.
   Teens of Thailand sits a few doors down from a strip of Chinatown street-food stalls and noodle shops that are arguably the better part of the evening. Start at the bar, eat at one of the noodle places between drink one and drink two, return for a final cocktail. The whole evening fits in two hours.
5. don't
   Try to settle in for the night.
   This is not a long-evening bar. Two drinks is the visit. Move on to one of the larger Chinatown rooms after - Asia Today is around the corner, Tep Bar is a five-minute walk. Teens of Thailand is best as the start, not the destination.

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