Last week was a hell of a week to call Hong Kong home. On 18-July, Hong Kong had the good fortune (thanks to the efforts of many wonderful people) to host the Asia’s 50 Best Bar awards for 2023. And with that comes many of Asia’s (and the world’s) best bartenders descending upon this fine city for a week+ of booze-tastic shenanigans. It was a challenging week, at least for all of our livers.
The full awards list is here. It was quite the show. Starting at the top, and most notably, Hong Kong’s own Coa hit the top spot for the (record-breaking) third year in a row. I wrote about Coa last year after the 2022 World’s 50 Best Bars were announced (no surprise that they also made that list). I’ll probably write more about them at some point in time, as they are deserving of their own blog post.
Many other favorite hangs of mine made the list. A few I’ve written about already; many more are still deserving of some blog action here. Suffice to say, I will be attempting to correct that in the coming weeks. I know I’m behind on the blogging, but I’m using last week’s energy to see if I can drive myself back to writing in a more serious way. Wish me luck (given my previous track record at posting).
What I really want to talk about (and what my liver most hates me for) are the guest shifts. As documented in this list of guest shifts (amongst other places), it was a helluva week. There’s truly too much to cover in great detail (if you follow me on Instagram, you already saw the madness). So, I just want to offer up a few quick highlights. While I did my best to make the rounds, I will say there were three or four bars that I consistently returned to for their amazing parties.
Topping off the list is the Pontiac (this is also top of my list for why-the-fuck-haven’t-I-written-about-this-amazing-bar-yet, but rest assured, I will correct this soon enough). Monday night before the awards, they hosted quite the rager, appropriately named Unapologetic Rage, hosting some of the most badass bartenders around. It’s a rager for inclusiveness, for representation, for a host of other things that this world needs more of. And then, I came back on Wednesday to attempt the hot sauce karaoke with some drinks by the crew from Deadfall in Singapore. I can karaoke pretty well, but I will admit that the hot sauce completely kicked my ass. Fortunately, I was singing a Tom Waits song (The Piano Has Been Drinking), so the hot sauce only made me sound more like Tom Waits. Also, and this can’t be said enough, huge shout out to Beckaly Franks, founder of the Pontiac, and winner of this year’s Bartender’s Bartender award. I’ve been loving every project she’s been involved in and am looking forward to more.
Penicillin probably wins the award for hosting the most guest shifts. We hit up but a small portion of guest shifts there and barely scratched the surface I think. For us, we were excited to check out the guests shifts from Atlas and Analogue Initiative in Singapore, The Cocktail Club in Jakarta, and Handshake all the way from Mexico City. Were one so inclined, they could probably post up in Penicillin all day long and see many of the worlds best bartenders traipse on through.
Another solid show for the week was the Americana-themed Honky Tonks. Always a good spot for a crowd and some madness. I appreciated on Monday night, the comments of a group of regulars as they wandered in to the 28 Hong Kong Street guest shift, not knowing that it was a crazy week of shifts: it was a surprising crowd for a Monday night. The joy of awards week. I was also very glad to meet the crew from Tropic City in Bangkok, a bar that I (regrettably) have not been to yet.
Lastly, I want to give a shout out to the newly opened Green Door in Hong Kong. This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite spots in town, and I’m sure I’ll be writing about them more. From hosting a crew of awesome bartenders on Monday night, an Altos Tequila masterclass, and an Amaro Lucano launch party, it was non-stop awesomeness. I will be writing about this bar and crew more to be sure.
This is but the briefest of summaries of the awesomeness of last week. I’m planning to spend more time writing about all of my favorite bars, but more importantly, I’m planning to keep drinking at all of my favorite bars, and exploring the many awesome bars on the list that I haven’t made it to yet. You should check them all out as well.