From July 14 to 20, Almaty will host an international bar event, the Almaty Bar Shift — a week that will gather industry experts and culinary enthusiasts. Mixologists and bar festival organizers from all over the world, including those from Florence, Athens and Washington, will come to Kazakhstan for the event.
Almaty Bar Shift will unite educational activities during the daytime, including lectures, discussions and workshops, and evening events in the city’s best bars. Within the guest shifts, bartenders featured in the World’s 50 Best Bars, Top 500 Bars and Michelin rankings will serve cocktails from the menus of the world’s most acclaimed establishments.
The project is supported by the Almaty Tourism Bureau and the Shift Project international initiative. Organizers emphasize that, apart from bar shows and dominant names, the event is also focused on developing gastronomy tourism, which is gaining more and more popularity among travelers. According to experts’ estimates, food and beverages account for 15% to 35% of an average tourist’s budget.
Notably, several locations in Almaty and Astana have been featured on the Star Wine List, a guide for wine bars and restaurants that marks the best places from all over the world.
At the same time, a contrasting trend is emerging. A «sober curious» movement has recently been on the rise, meaning communities rejecting alcohol for various reasons. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has reported an increase in the number of alcohol-free villages, following the same-name initiative by the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, which applies a ban on alcohol sales across selected rural areas.
