Drinks à la Carte

Bar menus are cheekier, wackier and more creative than ever. Here are a few that tease with eye candy even before the drinks arrive.

Don’t be a Sticky Beak or a Two Pot Screamer. Be a Good Egg and order a friend a Fair Shake of the Sauce Bottle. “Designed to get you used to Australian lingo and culture,” this dictionary-style menu is a riot of bright colours and laughs, like the Bin Chicken cocktail (the white ibis bird is apparently the Australian trash-talk version of an urban raccoon).

GIFT SHOP

89-B OSSINGTON AVE., TORONTO, ONT>

A cross between a graphic novel and a zine, this compendium of house rules (“The customer is not always right”), cocktail history, merch, vintage newspaper ads and oh yeah, cocktails and spirits, is as idiosyncratic as the tiny, legendary speakeasy behind Barber & Co.

LAOWAI

251 E. GEORGIA ST., VANCOUVER, B.C.

The first few volumes of these book-bound menus, featuring drinks themed around Chinese historical figures, got swiped so often the bar started selling them. The new edition is a tribute to the vintage video game Dynasty Warriors, complete with cheat codes and drinks based on each character’s stats, attributes and histories.

PROOF

1302 1st. S.W., CALGARY, ALTA.

An award-winning design in its original, literary-themed incarnation, this curiously illustrated menu (exotic birds and bugs! Bears in gowns! Three- headed beasts! A floating ship!) has purpose. They’re “fun to look at and encourage you to continue to turn the pages,” says proprietor Jeff Jamieson.

RAIN DOG BAR

1214 9th AVE. S.E., CALGARY, ALTA.

When your bar name nods to an ’80s Tom Waits album, of course your menu should look like a retro zine. The pandemic-born Coron-icles is “full of Easter eggs, crossword hints and nonsense… mostly lies,” says owner Bill Bonar. And some wines and such. But none of the beer the bar is known for — that list changes almost daily.