TeetoTurtle on Jalan Hang Kasturi in Chinatown is reclaiming the mocktail through a menu of thirteen drinks, two bases, and the full theatre of a bar without a drop of alcohol in the name of craft and inclusivity.

Climbing a flight of decades-old wooden stairs that creak and groan underfoot, I notice a framed photograph on the wall: the words “#persaucocktail” in the late Karl Too’s handwriting, rescued from beneath a contractor’s paint on the exact spot where the bar veteran once scribbled it. His concept for the space never came to be, and in its place is TeetoTurtle.

At its best, the bar experience is a fundamentally human one. A high chair pulled close enough to watch a drink being made. A conversation with the bartender about what’s in the glass, or what brought you in. Alcohol has never really been the requirement, just the accessory, and TeetoTurtle is betting KL is ready to see the difference.

Teetotalers to TeetoTurtle

Persau took its name from persaudaraan, the Malay word for brotherhood, and Karl Too’s vision for the space was a bar as a place of camaraderie, somewhere everyone found belonging over a drink. That version of the space was never built, but TeetoTurtle, in its own way, carries the idea forward. A room designed for people who’ve historically been left out of the bar experience, based on the same instinct toward inclusivity Karl had in mind.

Behind TeetoTurtle is Shawn Chong, mixologist-founder of Bar Mizukami and Malaysia’s World Class champion in 2015. Shawn and Karl were partners at Omakase + Appreciate before Karl’s passing, which makes the inheritance of this space, and the photograph on its wall is a thoughtful homage to their shared history.

Named for the teetotaler, TeetoTurtle avoids the word “bar” entirely because in Malaysia it carries an association that undercuts the audience this space is meant for. Shawn prefers “sober mixology space,” and the reasons people don’t drink today go well beyond abstinence: faith, health, a driver’s pragmatism, or simply personal choice.

The wider industry chose to abandon the word mocktail, retreating into “zero-proof” and “non-alcoholic” instead, as though a rename could do the elevating. TeetoTurtle’s dapper sunglasses-wearing mascot, Teeto the Turtle says otherwise, printed boldly on the menu: mocktail is not a bad word.

There’s a bigger shift underneath that slogan. Non-alcoholic drinking has been picking up pace globally for a few years, credited to a sober curious movement, a generation drinking measurably less, and non-alcoholic spirit brands finally giving bartenders proper ingredients to work with. Here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s version carries its own inflection, with a large Muslim population that doesn’t drink for religious reasons, historically served the same way as everyone else who’s ordered a virgin cocktail: a cordial, a soda, a cherry on top, the end. Most serious cocktail bars in the Klang Valley now run a non-alcoholic option or two, and some have a dedicated section for inclusivity. Very few have built an entire space around it like TeetoTurtle has, especially in a part of town known for bar hopping.

I settled into a counter seat on my first visit slightly unsure what to expect. The room holds up its end of the bargain reiterating itself as a bona fide drinking destination: counter seating along one side, tables of assorted sizes across the rest, plus a gallery partition that opens up for social programming, currently hosting a rotating exhibition of Ms Dong Yi, a character conceived by local illustrator Charis Ng. The bar’s design draws loosely from a turtle’s shell, a Malay kampung house, and samurai armour—references that shouldn’t work together but somehow do.

Jamu & Pudina

From the counter, I watched as sober mixologists Naqib Najmi and Yee Mheng moved through the full bartender’s toolkit—shaking, stirring, aerating, foaming, garnishing. The lack of alcohol never dampened their spirits, only giving the work a higher sense of purpose.

The menu runs on two proprietary bases, each the work of one mixologist. Naqib’s Jamu comes from the Indonesian herbal tonic tradition with ginger, turmeric, lemongrass, cinnamon, clove and pandan, cooked down to the right body. It sits in the dark spirit register, think whiskey or bianco vermouth. Mheng’s Pudina is mint, thyme, chamomile, citrus and gentian, clarified with agar, the gentian giving it a medicinal, licorice-adjacent edge that anyone who’s had a Chinese herbal tincture will recognise. It stands in for gin, with more character than some spirits.

The techniques are the same as conventional bartending—clarification, sous vide, foaming—and Shawn made the point plainly when asked about it: there’s no good reason a Malay or Muslim hospitality worker should keep getting routed to coffee service while these skills sit on the other side of a line drawn only by what’s in the shaker. And he is definitely not the only one that thinks so, across the country, I’ve had excellent cocktails crafted by bartenders who do not partake. Before TeetoTurtle, Shawn tested the concept at Soberside, a mocktail pilot within Monograph café as proof that there was an appetite for this done properly.

Alongside Jamu and Pudina, the team also makes its own Java Spice and a house aromatic bitters. Whatever can be made in-house, is—for originality, for supply control, and for keeping drinks priced a fraction of what the city’s best cocktail bars charge.

A Mocktail Collection Worth Discovering

The menu at launch is comprised of thirteen drinks (plus a kombucha), running light and refreshing at the front of the menu to darker and more serious toward the back. Jamu Tonic and Pudina Highball serve as the most straightforward introductions to each base. Further in, Golden Field pairs Jamu with Okinawa black sugar and cornsilk tea for something closer to lohanguo herbal tea than a cocktail, served with a torched, salted ear of baby corn on the side. I hadn’t expected a childhood flavour memory to surface here, but there it was.

Emerald Chill is the standout on the Jamu side, and the drink I kept coming back to in my head days after. Cucumber, lemon and aloe vera, carried by a homemade cucumber syrup—smooth, properly fragrant, cut at the right moment with acid. It’s the drink I’d order without hesitation if someone told me I could only have one.

Kyoto Mist brought some proper theatre to the middle of the menu with matcha whisked fresh in front of me and poured tableside over Jamu, Calpico and lychee. I sipped it first for the matcha’s bitterness against the sweetness underneath, then stirred the two together as instructed, and the drink changed character between the first sip and the fifth.

Apple Pie Sour, from the Pudina side, dusted with a cinnamon lattice at the bar that had me thinking of pie crust before I’d even picked up the glass. Made up of green apple, caramel, lemon and aquafaba, this mocktail followed through on that promise being warm, tart, velvety, and very apple pie-esque.

The Berry Bush is Mheng’s deconstructed bramble, and the most involved drink on the menu. A blackcurrant granita arrived in a martini coupe, the rest of the drink served as a shot alongside, with instructions to taste the granita first, then the shot, then bring the two together. I did exactly that, twice, just to see if the second attempt would taste any different, and it ended up being one of my favourites of the evening.

The menu closes on Night Thyme Thoughts, Teetoturtle’s take on an Old Fashioned with Pudina, Kopi O, and house aromatic bitters. On the palate, a whisper of Negroni in the finish I hadn’t expected but was glad to find, which says something for a person who avoids the medicinal aftertaste of Campari. For a stroke of theatre and aroma, Mheng lit a small dish of dried herbs at the counter before setting the glass down with a curl of smoke rising alongside it. The coffee in the elixir seems counterintuitive for a drink named after night time thoughts, but the caffeine effect is slight, and the memorability is real.

Mocktail Is a Good Word?

TeetoTurtle sits in an area full of some of KL’s best bars, but also plenty of people who don’t drink, and it’s positioned itself as the answer for both. What Shawn and his team have created is ambitious by any measure: a full bar experience on bases built from scratch nobody else has done, with the same rigour you’d expect anywhere with alcohol in the room. Here, sober mixology is not a compromise, it’s the whole point, and I certainly have to agree. Start with the basics, then stay for the smoke.

TeetoTurtle Sober Mixology
62-1, Jalan Hang Kasturi,
50050 Kuala Lumpur (Maps)

Operation Hours:
Wed–Sun: 3.00PM–11.00PM
Mon & Tue: Closed

@teetoturtle

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