Thailand forum

Beer Lao is the best option in the area if you can get it, and worth a trip to Laos if you are already in the area. :) My wife enjoyed mixing beer and sprite during our trip as a light and refreshing drink. I can't think of any Thai-specific cocktails, but most bars will give whatever you'd like an honest effort. While it isn't the Long Bar at Raffles, I've had a few good Singapore Slings in Thailand as well. Cheers.

Mixed fruit shake (banana, pineapple, coconut ... NO MILK!!!) with a glug of Sangsom or Sang Thip from the bottle sitting in your pack.

Lime juice (with a bit of salt) with a splash of vodka (again, from the bottle in your pack).

Avoid Mekong + Red Bull (or M-150) unless you enjoy high sugar drinks that taste like boozy medicine, and raging hangovers.

Most Thai beers are crap, but some are relatively passable with some ice and a squeeze of lime.

Rice whiskey (lao) from an old motor oil container with a rag stopper in the top ... a good way to finish off a day of rice-planting (or to start a day of rice-planting), but definitely not the sort of thing you'll want to indulge heavily in. NOT a girly drink. If you get into this stuff, make sure your bed is not far away and that you have a clear path to it.

i'm going to have to agree with tilapia on this one that thai beers are nothing to write home about, particularly with Beer Lao capturing the hearts and minds of the majority of Travelfish beer drinkers. but there is a beer for every taste, and i admit that Beer Chang is very popular with many of my friends. it doesn't hurt that you can get heaps of the stuff quite cheap. plus, it has improved a lot since it first came out. the first one i ever drank nearly put me in the hospital with a hangover!

and, i tend to squeeze a bit of lime into my thai beers too, drinking them ice cold and often popping an aspirin along with the first sip. i love thailand!

in any case, we had a fun thread on SEA beers several months back at this link:

http://www.travelfish.org/board/post/indochina/213_What-s-the-best-beer-in-southeast-Asia-/0

cheers!

Marian,

I've thought this over carefully and the answer is b) a wuss trying to avoid a hangover. :-) In my defense, it wasn't the volume so much as the impurities in the beer I'd try to defend against. Plus, I would typically only do this on a night that I anticipated might be open-ended, such as when friends were visiting from overseas.

My other tip with Thai beer, is to either share a large bottle with friends (to save money) or to go ahead and pay extra for the small bottle. Otherwise, on a typically steamy Thai night, the beer will quickly get warm and become significantly less enjoyable to drink.

As Tilapia notes, the Thai-style way to handle this problem is to drink the beer over ice. Don't knock it. It keeps the beer cold, smooths out the flavor, and helps you keep your head in the game longer. Just another tip from a wuss like me trying to make the most of each and every opportunity. Cheers!

Getting back to the original thread I agree that most beach bars etc can make what you like to some extent.We always enjoyed a gin@tonic to watch the sunset before dinner.As for beers this is obviously a personal preference so here goes,Love Tigers if you can get this down south.Love Beer Lao up north in between have always enjoyed a an ice cold singha with food or without.Always travel with a stubbie holder as any true aussie does,that way beer is always fresh and cold.As for lime wedges or lemon in beer pleease!!enjoy your lagers

hands off chang,mekhong,lao khao-this stuff can killyou,watch the old farts at nana,patpong e.t.c. the slightly better shinga or sonhg thip stuff makes you sick as well. if it has to be beer-lao beer is the choice. if it comes to liquor-stick to decent booze as proper whiskey f.e. is easily available in thailand