If supping on a selection of cocktails in an imperial city sounds like your kind of thing, you might like to visit the Liquid Market cocktail festival.
- Dozens of bars show off their cocktail skills
- You get to consume the results of their efforts
- 2023 dates: TBA (was Sept 1-3 in 2022)
- See also:
The art of the cocktail
The Liquid Market cocktail festival brings together dozens of bars from Vienna, Austria, and abroad in a mighty cornucopia of cocktail creativity.
That’s an awful lot of mixing, shaking and stirring. So if you’re keen to taste your way through the colours and flavours of the bartender’s art, this seems like the place to do it. Workshops, tastings, street food, and music typically round off proceedings.
Given the festival’s success in previous years, Liquid Market has expanded to three days. In fact, such is its popularity that it’s taken place in other cities, too.
The event previously occupied the grounds of the Volksgarten, a well-known club venue with extensive indoor and outdoor areas, perched somewhat incongruously right in the middle of Habsburg parks and 19th-century grandeur.
In 2020, though, public health measures obliged the organisers to seek a smaller alternative: the event took place in the grounds of the former Sophienspital hospital, with a time slot system for entry. And in 2021, the event shifted to the Wiener Werkshallen event venue, with over 100 bars taking part. The 2022 event travelled to the METAStadt venue.
2023 dates, tickets & tips
I don’t have 2023 dates, yet, so watch this space or the official website (see below). The cocktails were poured from September 1st to September 3rd last time out. You can buy tickets in advance online through the website, once available.
If those tickets seem on the expensive side, note that the entry price usually covers all drinks, too, until 10pm: alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails, water, coffee…
How to get to Liquid Market
If the event revisits the 2022 location, here’s how to get to the METAStadt by public transport (it’s a bit off the beaten track):
Take the U1 subway to Kagran, then jump on the 25 tram to Erzherzog-Karl-Straße (about 6 stops and ten minutes away). Or take the U2 subway to Hardeggasse and go on three stop (four minutes)s on the 25 tram to Erzherzog-Karl-Straße.
Some trains from the main Hauptbahnhof station (look for the S80, for example) also stop at Erzherzog-Karl-Straße station.
Address: Dr. Otto-Neurath-Gasse 3, 1220 Vienna | Event website