Even in Vancouver, a magical mushroom drink raises eyebrows—especially when Candy Cap Magic, a cocktail consisting of rye infused with a curiously maple-flavoured fungus and local Bittered Sling aromatics, arrives in a smokefilled glass terrarium, perched on a bed of fragrant moss. At Botanist, such bar-raising drinks emerge theatrically from a high-tech cocktail lab but are grounded in natural ingredients such as oyster leaf, sea buckthorn and cherry blossom. One of the most creative cocktail bars in the country, if not the world, this unassuming sliver of a second-floor space in the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel has also become something of a champion factory. This year, it took home World’s Best Bar Team at Bols Around the World, and head bartender Jeff Savage placed second at the Diageo World Class Bartender of the Year Finals.
TRY: INTO THE AETHER, A GENEVER-BASED COCKTAIL SERVED IN A SPINNING GLASS THAT APPEARS TO MAGICALLY LEVITATE. Photo: FAIRMONT PACIFIC RIM
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