A bar not to be found at first glance: what may sound like a not-so-smart marketing approach is an amazing success. Inspired by the secret bars during Prohibition in the USA in the 1920s, speakeasies have been experiencing a renaissance for years.
Several tourists are standing a bit helplessly on the sidewalk in Bangkok's hip Thonglor district. You're looking for a bar that has had success for years precisely because it's so hard to find. Eventually the women discovered the narrow corridor leading to the entrance. But here's the next problem: Instead of a door, countless lockers are waiting. If you want to get into the cool bar, you first have to solve the riddle of how to get in. The secret will not be revealed here - but the name of the bar will, because that says it all: "Find The Locker Room".
Whisperable or speakeasy are the names of such hidden pubs. They have been enjoying increasing popularity with night owls from all over the world for several years - and have long been an integral part of the nightlife scene from Brussels to Buenos Aires. In Berlin, for example, it's "Buck
At that time, the production and consumption of alcohol was banned against the will of many German-born brewers. As a result, secret bars without doorplates sprang up on every corner, where spirits were still served and classic cocktails mixed. The speakeasies were born - in German, for example: Speak softly. Mostly they were gloomy, wicked and windowless. Thick curtains on the door helped with soundproofing, but the tone was kept low so as not to startle the police.
The days of Prohibition are long gone, but the idea still works 100 years later. But why? "The speakeasy can do something special: It speaks fluently 'atmospherically'," the magazine "Mixology" summed it up a few years ago. "In a speakeasy, the atmosphere begins before you even enter the room: first you have to find the bar."
And for this, the makers often dig deep into their bag of tricks. Sometimes they work with passwords, sometimes with particularly imaginatively designed entrance areas, other times a riddle has to be solved by text message in order to find out the address at all. The book "Top Secret. The Coolest Speakeasy Bars in the World" (published by Kunth Verlag in 2018) lists some of the most original bars in the world.
Speakeasys are a "highly staged mix of resistance myth and maximum privacy in public space," says Christoph Kiening, who develops concepts for bars and restaurants worldwide. "The creative staging of the spatial secrecy is the marketing currency of these places," explains the Munich resident, who spends several months looking around the cult nightlife scene in Asian metropolises such as Bangkok, Tokyo and Hong Kong every year.
At "J. Boroski" and the "Rabbit Hole" - two of Bangkok's famous whisper bars - unadorned and handleless doors without any lettering open the way to the "Roaring Twenties". In 008, high above the rooftops of the Thai capital, suitable props in the anteroom make the leap in time perfect: black-and-white photographs lie scattered on a table, next to them is a camera from yesteryear and an ancient typewriter that typed in proper style over loudspeakers.
"There are days when it doesn't hurt to be able to disappear into another world with a single step," writes Mixology magazine. "Maybe not to escape the law, but in a world where most of the secrets are already known."
Ong, head bartender at "Find the Locker Room," is also convinced that it's the supposed privacy that lures guests into the secret bars. "People kind of feel like they're 'insiders' here, by themselves, while out on the street people have no idea there's a place here," he says while mixing a cocktail called "Strawberry Fields." . Gin, raspberry liqueur, angostura bitters, fermented milk and black pepper are just some of the ingredients.
Because the quality of the drinks on offer is also important for a speakeasy to work. Ultimately, it was the bartenders from Prohibition who made classic cocktails like Side Car, Old Fashioned or White Lady really popular. From the twilight Speakeasies they then began their march of fame around the world.
The classics of bar culture can still be found almost everywhere on the hidden bar menu. Most also rely on their own creations. Not only the atmosphere, but also the drinks have to be right so that guests come back or flood social media with positive comments. "The hidden bar trend is a spin-off of the internationally growing mixology boom," says concept maker Kiening. But only in the digital social media space would the pubs be made visible to the general public as a "discovery" and "experience" through the posts of visitors.
Meanwhile, the tourists are leaving the "locker room" and emerging from the world behind the lockers. Outside, on Sukhumvit 55 - one of Bangkok's most popular streets - the nightlife rages on, there is no whispering here. "You kind of feel like a kid in a speakeasy," says Kristina from London enthusiastically. "Like doing something totally forbidden - but without being punished for it."
