Penang has long been a destination where people plan their days around what they’re going to eat next: char kway teow for breakfast, curry mee for second breakfast, nasi kandar for lunch, a little asam laksa to tide you over, and then perhaps a plate of Hokkien mee because, well, you’re already here.

But increasingly, the island is making a compelling case for drinking your way around it, too.

ABC Fizz at Good Friends Club

George Town’s cocktail scene has grown into one of Malaysia’s most interesting, with bartenders doing much the same thing the island’s cooks have done for generations: pulling from Penang’s multicultural pantry, tinkering with tradition, and turning hyperlocal flavors into something entirely their own. Nutmeg, pandan, coriander, tamarind, belacan, curry spices, and even white curry mee have all found their way into the shaker.

Backdoor Bodega

So rather than simply listing Penang’s best bars, consider this your liquid treasure map: six stops, roughly arranged by geography, drinking intensity, and vibes, starting with lighter, more experimental sips and ending somewhere you’ll probably want to stay until last call.

Walking shoes on, drinking pants activated. Let’s crawl.

7PM: Biso Cocktail Bar – Start With a Little Science

Ease into the evening at Biso, an experimental cocktail laboratory where your first drink might involve coriander, fermented tomato, or beetroot.

N.E.O.H.

The name derives from the Penang Hokkien bi so, meaning “flavor,” an apt descriptor for founder and head bartender Quay Kar Ve’s approach. Rather than organizing the menu around familiar cocktail families, Biso focuses on ingredients, seasonality, sustainability, and the various ways science can coax unexpected flavors out of them.

No. 1

Start light with one of the highball-style options before working your way into Biso’s wackier side. The signature N.E.O.H turns coriander into the star alongside melon liqueur and a peanut chip, while No.1 takes inspiration from Italian caprese, using lacto-fermented tomatoes and white balsamic, topped with a cheese crisp. Coffee lovers can caffeinate for the crawl ahead with the Double Espresso, Biso’s Geisha coffee-powered riff on an Espresso Martini.

Better Than Ramly

Consider this stop one part cocktail, one part chemistry class – except here, drinking in class is encouraged.

Pro tip: Don’t miss high-energy, live music venue and sister bar Magazine 63 next door, which comes to life in the heart of the witching hour.
Biso, 63A, Jalan Magazine, George Town

8PM: The Nest – Drinks With a Side Piece

From Biso, head northeast into George Town proper for The Nest, tucked inside a restored Peranakan shophouse.

Ember Drift

Osmanthus Oolong Highball with Mochi

Billing itself as a “bar for the flavor explorer,” The Nest pairs its cocktails with edible garnishes and small bites designed to complement what’s happening in the glass. It’s an approach that turns each drink into a mini tasting experience rather than merely something to sip. The surroundings strike a similarly playful balance: heritage bones meet botanical accents, with a pool table tucked out back should your bar crawl suddenly require competitive sport.

Oriental Treasure Old Fashioned

The drinks wander gleefully across culinary borders spanning an Oriental Treasure Old Fashioned paired with an abalone and chicken pâté nibble, a smoky Penicillin twist dubbed Feather and Ash amped by Taiwanese ginger, and a Hojicha Sour, with the accompanying bites acting as a sort of edible punctuation mark.
The Nest, 82, Lebuh Melayu, George Town

9PM: Nomad – Take Your Taste Buds Traveling

No need to call a Grab for the next one: Nomad sits on the same street as The Nest, just a few doors down.

Chicha Sour

Oro Negro

As the name suggests, travel provides the inspiration here. The concept draws on flavors encountered around the world, translating them into cocktails through house infusions and globally-inspired ingredients. Think of it as collecting passport stamps without the baggage fees.

Tom Kha

The menu moves comfortably between savory, sour, spicy, and spirit-forward territory. Depending on the current rotation, that might mean something along the lines of a Thai-inspired Tom Kha cocktail, a corn-forward riff on a pisco sour known as the Chicha Sour, or Oro Negro – a humble homage to the Central American staple of rice and beans.

Taman Rasa

If Biso is about dissecting an ingredient, Nomad is about asking where that ingredient can take you.

And after three bars, apparently the answer is: dessert.
Nomad, 52B, Lebuh Melayu, George Town

10PM: Drunken Gelato – The Boozy Intermission

Every well-planned bar crawl needs a palate cleanser. Naturally, ours contains alcohol.

Hope You Get Rich (center), Milo O-Kao (left), Pistachio Mustachio (right)

Drunken Gelato is exactly what it sounds like: part cocktail bar, part gelateria, and proof that sometimes the best ideas emerge when nobody can leave the house.

The concept was born during the pandemic, when Good Friends Club founder Lorraine Tan had an unused ice cream machine and mixologist Kelvin Wong had time to experiment. Rather than simply dumping booze into ice cream, they developed gelato around the structure and flavor profiles of cocktails. The denser, lower-fat format of gelato also allows the character – and kick – of the spirits to shine through. After launching online with Drunken Rum and Raisin in 2021, the concept eventually became a brick-and-mortar bar in late 2022.

Milo O-Kao

Inside, chequerboard floors, neon lights, a disco ball, and a bright red exterior give the whole operation a cheeky retro feel.

Coffee and Croissant

Try Hope You Get Rich, which delivers on the rich (hence the name) flavors of the quintessential Malaysian brekkie of kaya toast with the added oomph of whisky, or Milo O-Kao – a nod to the nostalgic childhood favorite cocoa drink topped with a parmesan cracker. Better yet, order a cocktail alongside its frozen counterpart and conduct some extremely serious comparative research.

It’s journalism.
Drunken Gelato, 166, Lebuh Presgrave, George Town

11PM: Good Friends Club – Things Get Local

Suitably fortified with alcoholic ice cream, cross toward Jalan Gurdwara for the livelier portion of proceedings.

That Purple Drink

Penang White Dai-Curry 

Founded by Lorraine Tan and Kelvin Wong (the same duo behind Drunken Gelato), Good Friends Club is less polished speakeasy, more neighborhood party – a cocktail bar rooted firmly in Penang culture, from its kopitiam influences to a neon sign declaring “Good friends never bojio.” For the uninitiated, bojio is Hokkien slang for not inviting someone along.

Consider yourself jio-ed.

Ulam Chazuke

The menu leans gleefully into Penang’s edible identity. The Laksa Negroni transforms the island’s famously sour-spicy noodle soup into drinking form, while the Penang White Dai-Curry looks to white curry mee for inspiration in sippable daiquiri form. Despite all the fun, there’s serious substance behind it: around 85% of ingredients are sourced from small-scale local farms.
Good Friends Club, 39, Jalan Gurdwara, George Town

Midnight: Backdoor Bodega – Save the Best-Kept Secret for Last

For the grand finale, walk next door.

Georgetown Gimlet

Hidden behind what appears to be a pin shop, Backdoor Bodega began in 2016 with zero fanfare and an intentionally tongue-in-cheek premise: technically, you’re shopping for overpriced pins; the cocktails are merely part of the experience. Founder Koh Yung Shen opened the place because, by his own account, he couldn’t find a good place in Penang to hang out and drink cocktails.

He appears to have solved the problem.

Backdoor Bodega became the first Penang bar to crack Asia’s 50 Best Bars’ extended 51–100 ranking in 2022. More recently, its Backdoor Bodega Guide to Penang won the Siete Misterios Best Cocktail Menu Award 2025, turning its drinks list into an actual guide to the island’s food, culture, history, and hidden gems.

Rojak 

The cocktails taste unmistakably of Penang. Local soy sauce, nutmeg, belacan, ulam, galangal, pandan, and torch ginger all make appearances, resulting in drinks that function almost like liquid postcards from the island.

For the last round, go classic Backdoor with the Georgetown Gimlet, the bar’s signature dram, with an aromatic throughline of fragrant laksa leaves, galangal, lemongrass, Vietnamese coriander, tamarind paste and a hint of pungent belacan (fermented shrimp paste) simmered to make an actual laksa broth-based cordial. Shaken with torched ginger flower-infused gin, and brightened by an extract of key lime, calamansi and kaffir lime juice, this is one unmistakably Malaysian mixer.

R.B.S.

Quite possibly the zaniest concoction in town, R.B.S. is a savory tequila milk punch that both smells and tastes like the iconic street-style Ramly Burger, with a torched slice of cheese topper, a to-go burger wrapper, and all. 
Backdoor Bodega, 37, Jalan Gurdwara, George Town

By now, you’ve traveled from cocktail laboratory to Peranakan shophouse, globetrotting drinking den to boozy gelateria, neighborhood hangout to one of Malaysia’s most internationally recognized cocktail bars. Six bars, several kilometers, and potentially questionable decision-making later, you’ll have discovered something Penang has known all along: the best way to understand this island is through your taste buds.

Sometimes you just need to swap the spoon for a straw.

Honorary Mentions: Baobae for classics done right; no-menu, conversation-led Cocktails and Shots; wine and tea terroir-centric libations at Steep Social, No Bar Here for loud, colorful, ice-blended sippers; hybrid coffee and cocktail bar Small Places; Rembar for kitchen-style concoctions; Japanese and Malaysian “izakaya” bar Nomu, low-key speakeasy Half Day Chill; and spirit-forward Round.