These two Vancouver bars named to the World’s 50 Best website

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In April, The World’s 50 Best website announced its 2024 list of North America’s best bars. Two Vancouver institutions made the cut, although we lost out as Canada’s best to Toronto’s Civil Liberties which came in at No. 21. Other Canadian entries include Bar Pompette, Toronto; Cloakroom, Montreal; Bar Mordecai, Toronto; and Atwater Cocktail Club, Montreal.

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According to the website, the annual ranking reflects the best bar experiences in the region based on the votes of an academy made up of 270 gender-balanced anonymous bar industry experts, including bartenders, bar owners, drinks media and well-travelled cocktail connoisseurs from the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

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So what makes these two watering holes so special? Let’s take a sip, er, look.

Botanist Bar

Location: Fairmont Pacific Rim, 1038 Canada Place

Ranking: 24

Specialty/drink: What the Flower, a cocktail with gin, cherry blossom tea, lemon, ginger, cardamom and electric daisies, a flowering herb with a grassy taste that leaves a tingling sensation in the mouth. The drink “exists to elicit images of sun-soaked flowers on a spring day,” writes theworlds50best.com.

What to know before you go: Botanist prides itself on what it calls “the country’s only forward-facing cocktail lab,” which translates to experimental concoctions using such uncocktail-ish ingredients such as foraged candy cap mushrooms (to infuse Canadian rye), sea asparagus and fennel pollen. Creative Beverage director Grant Sceney, named World-Class Canadian Bartender of the Year in 2014, moved to B.C. from Australia in 2009 and worked in Whistler during the Olympic Winter Games before settling in Vancouver. Botanist Bar has also won the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award in 2023 as well as the Exceptional Cocktails Award during Vancouver’s Michelin Guide Awards in October 2022 and made last year’s Best North American Bars list at No. 19. The drinks menu also features a senses-stirring selection of spirit-free options that are as fussed over as their boozier counterparts.

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The Keefer Bar

Location: 135 Keefer St.

Ranking: 49

Specialty/drink: Sweet and Sour Sour, a cocktail with gin, Scotch, acidified pineapple, red pepper and honey with ketchup chip chicharron garnish. Finally, a use for ketchup chips.

What to know before you go: Widely credited with help making Vancouver a destination for cocktail connoisseurs, this 15-year-old apothecary-style saloon in Chinatown is one of Vancouver’s pioneering practitioners of creative cocktails. The drinks menu, overseen by general manager Keenan Hood and bar manager Amber Bruce, features an extensive “alumni” list of greatest-hits cocktails as well as a seasonal selection of nine additional options, cocktail shots, reserve cocktails made with premium spirits, and booze-free options like the Wild Folk Sparkling Negroni. Local Chinatown markets and herbalists provide many of the ingredients. Those who want the Keefer experience without the atmosphere can take home sachets of mix to make their own pineapple daiquiris, spicy margaritas, Buffalo Soldiers and more. Among its many other accolades, The Keefer came in at No. 25 in the inaugural ranking of North America’s Best Bars in 2022.

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