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
- Entry price includes all drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic)
- 2021 dates: September 2-4
- 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. Workshops, street food, and music 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 spread to other cities in Austria and Germany.
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 develop a smaller alternative: the event took place in the grounds of the former Sophienspital hospital, with a time slot system for entry.
In 2021, the event shifts to the Wiener Werkshallen event venue.
2021 dates and tickets
The cocktail shakers start, um, shaking from September 2nd to September 4th. You can buy tickets in advance online (see the official website below) once available.
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
For the record, here’s how to get to the Wiener Werkshallen by public transport (it’s a bit off the beaten track):
Take the U3 subway to Gasometer, then jump on the 72A bus to Haidestraße (seven stops and about six minutes drive). Or go on two further stops to Enkplatz on the U3, then take the 76A or 76B bus to Haidestraße (also around six minutes).
The organisers have indicated they will provide shuttle buses to pickup points in the city centre.
Address: 2. Haidequerstraße 1-3, 1110 Vienna | Website