FROM Taipei to Tainan, Kaoh-siung, and finally Taichung, the recent Taiwan Cocktail Camp (TCC) showed that the destination is becoming a force to reckon with in the Asian cocktail scene.
Taking place in early March, the five-day event involved bars from those four cities. Around 40 international bartenders also participated in guest shifts and activities in the respective cities; the event culminated in the TCC Outdoor Festival on March 7 at Taichung Park.
Judging from the scale of this year’s event, it’s hard to believe that the TCC started out last year as a “camp”. The Taichung Cocktail Camp back then took place at a glamping site in the outskirts of the city, and was a smaller event.
This year, the international bartenders came from a total of nine countries, and included Malaysians such as Nick Choo and Joel Poon from Reka:Bar, Justin Tay from Cabinet 8 KL, and Koh Yung Shen from Penang’s Backdoor Bodega.
Each of the bartenders were assigned to a particular city and took part in guest shifts and activities happening there over two days.
On March 6, everyone congregated at Taichung, for a two-day cocktail extravaganza. The first day saw six guest shifts happening across the city, including Poon and Choo taking over at O‘Tailor Coffee & Bar.
It was the second day in Taichung that was really the focus of the entire week, though. All the participating bartenders, both international and local ones, took part in the Outdoor Festival held at Taichung Park.
The festival featured performances, whisky and spirit tastings, cocktail booths, and a “Star Booth” showcasing the international bartenders.
A personal highlight was a Deanston whisky tasting in the park where we tasted three single malt whiskies and paired them with Haidilao snacks.
The most fun part of the festival was the Star Booths, where all the international bartenders took turns doing 15-minute shifts, serving cocktail shots made with Codigo tequila.
As far as outdoor cocktail festivals go, this was well-run and a lot of fun, not only showcasing the drinks from each city, but also the overall hospitality of the Taiwanese cocktail community.
Before heading to Taichung, I got to visit a number of bars in Taipei, and witnessed the vibrancy and variety of the cocktail scene there.
One bar that stood out was Lab, which uses “science and technology to create minimalist cocktails with a modern twist”.
Minimalist in concept, maximalist in flavours, I walked in to Lab expecting rigidity, but got fluidity in potions.
It’s not a big space – the staff are in lab coats, and the colour theme is clean and monochrome. Like, you know, a lab.
But don’t let the seemingly cold lab deco fool you – the vibe is anything but cold. The bartenders are chatty and informative, and the way they conduct their “experiments” is fascinating to watch.
With the limited time we had, I went for the “Innovative Classics”, which reimagines classic cocktails with their own techniques. I could not resist trying the Jungle Bird, which Lab combines with a Pina Colada, playing with the contrast of coconut and pineapple quite nicely; while the Espresso Martini came in a striking silver glass and uses a medium dark roast coffee together with vodka and rum for a richer twist, and a spray of distilled orange water as perfume on top.
Another standout was the Irish Coffee, which is combined with an Affogato, with two layers of temperatures in one drink – ice cream made with liquid nitrogen on top, and hot coffee at the bottom (with whisky, of course).
Another bar that really appealed to my personal interests was Book Ing, which combines a library/bookstore and fantasy-like concept with book-and-story-inspired cocktails.
The bar itself is like a little book cave, and its current menu is “A Grown-Up’s Tipsy Animation”, inspired by two Studio Ghibli films: Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.
Aside from the little flip book/slide format of the menu itself, I loved the performative and imaginative ways the cocktails are presented, which adds to the feeling that you’re in a fantastical, magical book-land of cocktail wonders.
The standout drinks for me were the Haku Martini, a clean but sharp martini with hinoki and pomelo blossom notes; and the No Face Ramos, which combines rum, black sesame coffee, soy milk and salted caramel for an almost desserty take on the Ramos Fizz.
Also, Calcifer’s Bloody Mary was a great mezcal take on the classic cocktail, with a “fried egg” made out of Mozzarella cheese and dry duck egg yolk lending a playful touch.
If you love desserts and cocktails, Merry Dessert, Taipei’s first dessert and cocktail bar is the place to be.
I usually don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but here, both desserts and the cocktails were delicious – nicely balanced, tasty, and crucially: not too sweet.
Heck, it was so good that I actually had more desserts than cocktails here.
The highlight of this visit was the fermented tofu basque burnt cheesecake, which is as wildly delicious as the name suggests. Supposedly created after the founders wondered if it was possible to incorporate Taiwan’s famous stinky tofu into a dessert, the contrast between the fermented tofu notes and the cheesecake sounds so wrong but turned out oh-so right.
I decided to pair that with the Apple Milk Bread, a martini-like drink that really did taste like apple milk bread.
We visited a number of other bars as well – Knock Knock impressed me with the way they combined local and Western flavours; Bar Without had a fabulous lychee martini riff; To Infinity & Beyond was a fun bar with a sci-fi vibe; Night ‘n’ Day had some interesting classic twists; and the food and drinks were pretty memorable at Fugu Gastropub.
For our last bar in Taipei, however, we had more than our fair share of fun at SomeFun, a bar that pays tribute to Taiwan’s indigenous tribes. I loved everything about this bar, from the vibe and infectious energy of the bar team, to the drinks, which ranged from a delicious Tribe’s Tiramisu dessert drink using a local liqueur called Polyta B to an Irish Coffee made with pour-over coffee (instead of filtered).
With only two days in Taipei, I barely managed to scratch the surface of the city’s cocktail scene. But one thing is for sure – Taiwan, not just Taipei, really is becoming one of Asia’s top cocktail destinations.
Michael Cheang is still dreaming of that fermented tofu cheesecake. Follow him in Instagram (@mytipsyturvy) and Facebook (fb.com/mytipsyturvy).
