Meet the minds behind Wasteland: Dharath “Tot” Hoonchamlong and Kitibordee “Gov” Chortubtim on cocktail innovation, waste-to-glass creations, local collaborations and the future of sustainable bars.

If any drink is defined by trial and error, it’s the cocktail. In many ways, experimentation is the whole point of mixology: figuring out how spirits, techniques and presentation come together to create something meaningful. But when innovation happens just for the sake of it, it usually leaves a trail of wasted ingredients behind.

Enter Wasteland, the experimental cocktail bar with a brutalist-industrial interior on Soi Pridi Banomyong 1 (Edison Alley), Sukhumvit 71 Rd, striving to craft cocktails from an inverted perspective: not simply experimenting for the sake of it, but out of environmental necessity, where waste, surplus and discarded ingredients are reworked, extracted and modified to draw out hidden, unexpected character in both flavour and form.

“It’s at the heart of what we do because we work with ingredients that people think can’t be used anymore. We simply want to unlock their potential once again. That’s why we invest so much in R&D, exploring what else they can become before they truly become waste. We believe that if we still see value in something, it isn’t waste,” 

says Kitibordee “Gov” Chortubtim, co-founder and beverage director. Together with co-founder and managing director Dharath “Tot” Hoonchamlong and the ‘wastelanders’ team, including swift-handed head bartender Wachiraya “Bell” Banpot, the bar has just released this year’s edition of its R&D programme titled ‘wasteland: BROWSE, Experimental / R&D Sessions’. Running from 8 July to 30 September, each weekly menu drop will introduce hyper-experimental craft cocktails, spanning 12 collections in a mere three months.

“BROWSE is a programme that lets our customers see how our ideas develop. It starts with experimental drinks. We have a huge library of ingredients and a lot of R&D behind them. Some of those ideas make it onto the main menu, while others can’t because of seasonality, transport or limited supply. That’s part of the experience.”

Koktail sits down with Tot and Gov to delve into the driving force behind the programme, exploring the mechanics of their R&D, their collaborations with local producers, what they hope guests take away from the experience and how they plan to shake up the wider cocktail scene.

How Wasteland Began 

So how did Wasteland come about? Well, to start, it came from an unwavering passion for sustainability and environmental science. Tot himself graduated from New York University (NYU) with a Master’s in Food Studies and had worked as Sustainability Director for a hotel, not to mention his many roles as a food editor, event organiser and marketer. But it was when he was still working as an environmental manager for a restaurant that he first came up with the idea of crafting cocktails out of waste. At first, it was going to be some sort of event, as his inner event organiser might lead him to, but when he proposed it to Gov, whom he had known beforehand, and when the previous venue, Bo.lan restaurant, closed down, the plan then shifted into a full-fledged effort to become a bar.

“Wasteland began around the end of 2019, when I was working as an environmental manager at a restaurant. I thought, why not create drinks or organise events? So we started popping up at different bars. Gov and I already knew each other, and he was keen to give it a go. It all started as an event, then things gradually began to grow. Around that time, a space became available at Bo.lan restaurant. They asked whether we’d be interested in turning what we’d talked about into a permanent venue. That’s how Wasteland came to open in 2020,”

Tot explains.

But then the pandemic hit and stopped all physical operations. Although without a venue, they still operated as a collective entity for four years until reopening their physical space in 2025. During those years without a storefront, they did not idle. Instead, they worked with various sectors and shared their vision with the world.

“We did consultancy work, workshops and lectures. We invited guest speakers, Gov ran workshops on drink making and I spoke at events across Thailand and overseas, sharing ideas about sustainability and Wasteland. I talked about our model, the work we do, what makes us different and how others can learn from it,” 

Tot says.

But what about the name ‘Wasteland’? How did that come about? When one pictures a wasteland, one might have in mind an uninhabitable space where no signs of life are to be found. Why such an evocative name, negative or positive depending on how you conceive it, for a bar that drives towards sustainability? With all its grey, run-down building imagery, rather than a green world full of trees?

“Honestly, the name came from dystopian films. When people enter a wasteland in those films, they make the best possible use of whatever they can find or whatever is left behind. That really inspired us because it made us feel that anything is possible. That’s why we liked the name,”

Gov explains the rationale behind the decision. But this, more than anything, gives the bar a much cooler edge as they lean into that dystopian aesthetic – an image of a bar that doesn’t play by any rulebook, but instead seeks to break the rules and experiment with what it has been given. For Tot, its significance is twofold: 

“To me, it has two meanings. The first is, if we were living in a wasteland, how would we make the best use of what we have? The second is, how can we stop our world from becoming a wasteland in the first place?”

Between a Bar and a Cocktail Lab

Given how heavily they lean into the R&D process – with a lab upstairs housing specialised equipment and fermentation setups 2 one might wonder: is it a bar or an actual food lab? This ambiguity lies at the heart of Wasteland, since they seek to be more than just a bar, but a space for learning and collaboration. 

“You could say we’re a bar, but we do much more than what people usually think of as a bar. We don’t just focus on the bar industry, we focus on people. For example, our events are open to the public. Traditional bars often exist within a fairly specific ecosystem, but we work with government agencies, organisations, NGOs and many other groups. We also welcome people from the bar industry who want to learn with us, as well as customers who are curious about our R&D, because we believe sustainability only works when everyone can take part and adapt it in their own way.”

They don’t gatekeep their techniques; instead, they aim to propel their vision and spread their philosophy so people understand that waste is something far greater than it appears. In this way, it is deeply people-centric – a wider vision of how waste can be integrated into how we live, dine and drink, where cocktails are merely a fraction of the bigger picture.

The Method Behind It All

When asked about the R&D process, Tot explains that the bar experiments not only with ingredients, some discarded and some hard to locate, and how cocktails are constructed, but also with how they drop their menus across various formats:

“When it comes to our menus and programmes, we experiment in many different formats, whether that’s long form, short form, pop ups, seasonal, hyper seasonal or tasting menus. This evolved from the Open Lab sessions we ran last year before the bar opened each day.”

Expanding on this approach, he further explains how their BROWSE programme sets itself apart from what other bars across Bangkok are doing, carving out a distinct identity in the city’s cocktail scene:

“Normally, a bar only introduces a major menu change about once a year. We wanted our team to keep interacting with ingredients and people so they could continue generating new ideas and experiments. That’s how BROWSE came about. Gov was the one who came up with the idea for this format for this year.”

Trial and (re)discovery is a continuous process of thinking and rethinking. Sometimes it starts with a field trip where they take suggestions from local producers, and sometimes discarded ingredients are sent straight to them. It never stops, like the process of learning where sometimes you fail and learn, and sometimes you succeed and learn more, but you never stop learning, reworking to carve new ways and forge new styles.

“The experimentation doesn’t stop after service. Our team is testing things all the time. We’re constantly sourcing new ingredients. Whenever we go on field trips, we meet farmers and producers who’ll often say, “Why don’t you try this?” Sometimes they send us more samples after we’ve returned, or someone on the team brings back ingredients from their hometown. That keeps the R&D going all the time.”

Ingredients are divided into three broad categories; it’s not discarded ingredients all the way down. Sometimes they are simply ingredients so overlooked that they require new ways of thinking and a different perspective, while other times they are rare ingredients resting in one corner of the mind, waiting for the right season to be used again.

“That’s why we work with such a wide variety of ingredients. It also forms the basis of our three approaches: direct sourcing for fresh produce, surplus ingredients and overlooked ingredients. The surplus and overlooked ingredients mostly come from food and beverage businesses. Wherever food is produced or handled, we either reach out to them or they contact us. In some cases, we turn those ingredients into new products and return them for them to use again,”

says Tot, to which Gov adds:

“There are also things we’ve been looking for for five years because we really wanted to work with them, but we just couldn’t find them. Then, when the timing was right, we finally found them, reached an agreement and they were able to send them to us.”

So do they plan around ingredients first, or decide what to make after getting them? Which comes first in their process? Gov answers that it works both ways. There are ingredients they want to use, but if it’s not the right season or they are hard to track down, they need to wait five years or however long. And sometimes an ingredient might not fit at all, but that doesn’t mean the whole experiment fails; it’s just not the right time for it. 

“Sometimes, as soon as we get a result, we know exactly where to take it next. Other times the result isn’t bad, we just don’t know what to do with it yet, so we leave it for a while. It needs time to settle. Then one day we come back to it and think, “Right, now we can start playing with this.”

It means going in blind, not knowing what to expect and simply working with what is available at any given moment. This requires real effort, not only to conceive individual cocktails, but also to coordinate with local producers and plan ahead for rare ingredients, even if that isn’t always strictly necessary. Crafting each menu takes a different amount of time. It varies, but this dynamic offers leeway and flexibility, which is a plus rather than a restriction.

“We never really know what flowers we’ll receive, so we have to work with whatever arrives at that time. There’s a certain amount of flexibility involved. It’s the same when working with farmers. If we want something special, we need to let them know 60 to 90 days in advance. Some menu elements take only a few hours to develop, others take days or weeks, while some take several months before they’re ready to be served.”

Who Goes There?

So who is actually interested in cocktails made from waste, rare and discarded ingredients? As it turns out, plenty of people. When it comes to cocktails, it’s not just about what tastes great and looks pretty, but also the story behind each drink. Curious bargoers are more than likely to strike up a conversation and dive into details, regardless of where they come from. 

“Some people are only interested in the sensory experience or how the drinks look, while others ask really detailed questions. Because our guests come from all kinds of professions, we sometimes meet conservationists, which opens up some really interesting conversations.”

This also includes hardcore environmentalists.

“We meet everyone, from guests who simply ask for a drink that looks good in photos to those who ask about the carbon footprint of the glass they’re drinking from.”

So, are you up to the challenge? Drop by Edison Alley at 3/19 Pridi Banomyong 1 (Sukhumvit 71 Rd, Vadhana) any day from 6pm to midnight. Be sure to follow @wastelandbkk on Instagram to catch their latest updates.