William Wang entered the bar business more than 40 years ago and has contributed so much to the development of Taiwan’s cocktail bar industry that younger generations refer to him as “Master Wang.”
Tainan has become a watchword in Taiwanese mixology. Over the last few years, the city has seen the rapid rise of nearly 100 bars, many of which are regularly named among Asia’s 50 best bars and employ mixologists that frequently participate in bartending competitions large and small. How did this buzzy bar scene come to be?
The answer goes back to Taipei’s Trio Bitters and its owner William Wang, Taiwan’s “godfather of cocktails.”
Now 66 years old, the dignified Wang demurs that he’s no one special and “just happened to get into the business early.” But with more than 40 years in the trade, he has been a key figure in the development of Taiwan’s present-day cocktail industry.
Wang emigrated to the US with his family and in 1985 began working at a New York bar, where he acquired an American bartending license.
He moved back to Taiwan in 1987, just one year after the Taiwan government’s easing of restrictions on the importation of foreign tobacco and spirits. With Taiwanese demand for these products rising rapidly, Wang leveraged his bartending background and proficiency in both Chinese and English to become a brand ambassador for a spirits company. In addition to promoting Western spirits and teaching Taiwanese how to mix and appreciate these beverages, he opened his own “Southern Comfort” and “Trio” group of bars, and wrote and translated several books on spirits.
Wang has taught and trained so many industry professionals over the years that young and middle-aged bartenders in Taiwan now respectfully refer to him as “Master Wang.”
Jessy Chiang wrote Wandering in Tainan’s Bars after becoming fascinated by the city’s watering holes.
Early shoots
The origins of Taiwan’s cocktail bar industry date back to the 1950s, when US soldiers stationed in Taiwan under the US–ROC mutual defense arrangement introduced the island to American bar culture.
However, information and resources were slow to reach Tainan, delaying the blooming of the city’s bar culture. Huang Yi-hsiang, the founder of Bar TCRC, has been a key figure in its recent emergence.
Huang first entered the business in 2005 as a part-time worker at a music club. He recalls the atmosphere in bars in those days being thick with cigarette smoke, the clientele being a little sketchy, the equipment rough and ready, and the cocktail-making skills poor.
He says that what kept him in the business was his interest in mixing drinks and “the way William Wang’s book Don’t Save a Single Bottle resonated with me.”
He longed to have a bar of his own, and founded Bar TCRC with a friend in 2008 after completing his military service. The bar would go on to provide the template for the cocktail focus that distinguishes many Tainan bars from nightclubs, sports bars and music bars.
Bar TCRC is also known for its hole-in-the-wall location, even though Huang admits that they originally chose the spot for its cheap rent. They had no idea their bar would get caught up in the trend to repurpose old buildings.
In business for more than 15 years, Bar TCRC has changed with the times. For example, in 2012 it expanded into the building behind it to remain compliant with capacity limits under city fire safety ordinances, and in 2013 it became one of the first local bars to ban smoking.
TCRC’s many accolades and achievements have solidified its reputation for excellence and serve as a testament to its attention to cocktail-making detail. These include Huang himself placing fifth in the 2011 Taiwan Region World Class Bartending competition; TCRC being ranked among Asia’s 50 best bars in both 2016 and 2018; and the team of Johnny Tsai, a former TRTC bartender, and Li Yu, a fellow Tainaner and founder of the gelato shop Ninao, winning the Glenfiddich World’s Most Experimental Bartender competition in 2018.
Thanks in part to social media, TCRC has become a must-see Tainan destination.
Swallow owner Dan Chang wears a uniform inspired by Japanese monks’ robes, which suits the bar’s atmosphere.
A “bar” city
Tainan’s bar scene has certainly taken flight in recent years, with Bar TCRC and Moonrock both appearing on the 50 Best Bars in Asia list and mixologists from Bar TCRC and Han Jia Pairing Diner winning the Taiwan Region World Class Bartending competition multiple times. Nowadays, the “Tainan mixology mafia” is practically a weathervane for the Taiwanese cocktail industry.
The Tainan City Government has also actively supported the tourism and bar industries. For example, for the last several years the city has hosted the annual Tainan International Food and Wine Carnival, which attracts tourists while also providing an opportunity for beverage makers and bar owners to network and talk business.
With the pandemic also spurring domestic demand for dining and drinking, the last five years have been the most prosperous in the Tainan bar industry’s history. Industry professionals estimate that Tainan has between 100 and 200 cocktail-focused bars, with the largest concentration located in the city’s touristy West Central District.
Interestingly, the vast majority of these are within walking distance of one another, encouraging visitors to go bar hopping amongst the ones they’d like to try.
There’s no question that Tainan has a remarkable bar scene.
But what makes Tainan’s bars appealing?
It’s not trendy, over-the-top décor: Tainan’s bars tend to have a relaxed, easy-going vibe. You’re unlikely to see a stiff mixologist in a crisp behind the bar, and instead will usually be greeted with a warm hello from a friendly bartender. Even the clientele is different, usually consisting of people looking to unwind after work and families who live in the neighborhood, rather than young people dressed up for a night on the town.
The drinks on the table may not be as sophisticated as those served in a Taipei bar, but they are big, strong and flavorful, the survivors of a process of natural selection at the hands of discriminating Tainan palates.
Jessy Chiang, author of Wandering in Tainan’s Bars, visited 60 bars during the year she spent in the city writing the book. She says three things make Tainan’s watering holes unique: temples, back alleys and long, narrow premises.
Swallow, the bar where we meet her, happens to exhibit all three characteristics. Founders Dan Chang and Mei Chiu are both from Northern Taiwan and worked at a number of well-known bars, including Trio, Indulge Bistro, and Jigger & Pony (Singapore), before deciding to move to Tainan to open their own.
“We chose Tainan because there’s a market here and we like the city,” says Chang.
Swallow occupies a century-old building and preserves its traditional architectural style. Decorated with warm wooden accents and old-fashioned floral-pattern window glass, it exudes elegance. The bar is filled with light that pours in from its shared courtyard and its floor-to-ceiling windows, in marked contrast to the typical dimly lit lounge. The courtyard even has its own peach tree, which was a gift from William Wang.
Open at 11 a.m., Swallow has quite a few customers who drop in during the daytime with children or pets in tow to enjoy a glass in its bright interior, making it easy to forget that this is in fact a bar.
Set against the backdrop of tradition-minded Tainan, it’s only natural that these bars have a retro atmosphere.
Sheldon Wu, the owner of Speakeasy Bar, has piqued the curiosity of many international visitors with his riffs on Western and Chinese medicinal alcohols.
Signature cocktails
Cocktail making in Tainan contains a healthy pour of local style. In addition to serving up classic cocktails like martinis and Long Island ice teas, local mixologists are adding a big dash of creativity to local ingredients to produce signature drinks for their bars.
The intense competition in Tainan means that bar menus turn over within the year or even the season.
But competition isn’t the only thing driving the rapid evolution. “Asia is home to a lot of cocktail geeks. Mixologists are obsessed with deep dives into flavors, and are constantly incorporating new ideas and trying new techniques (like using clarification techniques, rotary evaporators and centrifuges) to make cocktails,” says Jessy Chiang.
Tainan’s competitive cocktail arena has its roots in a variety of factors.
Tainan’s agricultural and culinary bounty is an inexhaustible treasure trove and source of inspiration to the city’s bartenders. A local cocktail might contain summer-ripe mango, fall pomelo, old-style candied fruits (kiâm-sng-tinn) that combine salty, sour and sweet flavors, “high mountain” oolong from a venerable tea merchant, tomatoes dipped in a mix of sugar, ginger powder and soy sauce, or even a beef broth that tourists have been known to line up all night to buy.
As Nicky Li, the owner of Tainan bar Khuntor tells us, “While all mixologists like to incorporate everyday flavors and foods into their cocktails, we like to go deeper with these ingredients.”
Khuntor really does push it to the limits. The bar’s name is taken from the old name for Tainan’s Anping District and an old honorific for Taiwan, which works well with the bar’s historic vibe. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Li is a history buff with a strong interest in local culture, and he uses his bar to highlight products from all over Greater Tainan.
For example, the bar offers a fruity cocktail called “Madou” (named after the city’s Madou District) that has the scent of pomelo and is served in the kind of ceramic bowl used to make uánn-kué (“rice bowl-cakes”) and a milk-based cocktail named “Liuying” in honor of Liuying District’s dairy industry.
Speakeasy Bar on Chikan Street is another local hotspot. Though it calls itself a “pharmacy” on its signboard, it is a bar through and through. That kind of playfulness infuses other parts of the bar, with a sign at the entrance declaring “drinking cures” and its bartenders designated as “nighttime psychiatrists.”
Speakeasy also happens to be a gin bar, which is relatively uncommon in Tainan. One of the foundational “six spirits,” gin is a distilled spirit flavored with juniper berries and other botanicals. Sheldon Wu, the bar’s owner, explains that gin’s roots as a medicinal beverage echo the medicinal liquor culture familiar to ethnic Chinese.
In homage to this history, every cocktail on Speakeasy Bar’s menu includes at least a small amount of the medicinal herbs and spices used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
When night falls and the lanterns come on, the bar’s lighting dims and upbeat music begins to play. Only recently opened on a small Tainan side street, Speakeasy Bar is already seeing a steady stream of customers, including quite a few foreigners with an interest in TCM.
A serious-faced and focused mixologist pours a flight of shots into tea bowls, then adds garnishes of candied fruit, dried fruit and olives to create elixirs with the herby, citrusy scents of gin enhanced with other aromas familiar to Taiwanese, like Sichuan peppercorn, cassia seed, chrysanthemum and licorice.
A little magical, a little homey and very chill. This city that never sleeps can’t help but be intoxicating.
For more pictures, please click 《Two Parts Magical, Three Parts Mundane, Five Parts Tipsy: Tainan’s Bars Never Sleep》
