If supping on a selection of cocktails in the shadow of an imperial palace 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
- Entry price includes all drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic)
- 2020 dates: Aug 6-8
- Special version in 2020 (see below)
- See also: Rum and gin festivals | Craft beer festival
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.
Given the festival’s success in previous years, Liquid Market has expanded to three days. In fact, such is its popularity that it’s spread to other cities in Austria and Germany.
The event normally occupies 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 have obliged the organisers to develop a smaller alternative: the event takes place in the grounds of the former Sophienspital hospital, with a timeslot system for entry.
2020 dates and tickets
The 2020 event is planned for Thursday to Saturday, August 6th to 8th. You can buy daily tickets or festival passes in advance online (see website below).
If tickets seem on the expensive side, note that the entry price normally covers all drinks, too: alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails, water, coffee…
How to get to Liquid Market
The Sofienspital is at Apollogasse 19 in the 7th district and very close to one of the main railway stations (Westbahnhof), reachable via subway line U3 and U6. Trams 6, 9, 18, 52 and 60 also stop there, for example. The 5 tram has stops close by, too (e.g. Stollgasse).
For the record, here’s how to get to the normal venue at the Volksgarten:
Subway: take the U3 to Volkstheater and leave the station in the direction of the city centre.
Tram: Take trams 1, 2, D, 71, 46 or 49 to Ring/Volkstheater and just look across the road.
Address: Volksgarten, Burgring, 1010 Vienna | Website