Tep Bar is the small Chinatown room that has done more than any other in Bangkok to argue that Thai spirits deserve a proper cocktail conversation. It sits on Soi Nana (the Chinatown one, not Sukhumvit) in a narrow shophouse, with a long bar, a small stage that hosts live Thai folk-music sets on weekends, and a menu built almost entirely from spirits and ingredients you cannot easily find anywhere else. The right way to read the menu is through the ingredients on the back bar. Six matter more than the rest.
Tep also runs a small kitchen putting out genuinely good Isaan bar food - laab gai, som tam, grilled pork - and the kitchen is in conversation with the bar in a way most cocktail bars give up on. Order one of the larger plates if you are settling in. The live music starts at 9.30pm on Friday and Saturday.