BC Business
Botanist
Vancouver's Botanist placed 19th on the list.
North America’s 50 Best Bars Academy recently did what its name suggests: it ranked the best bars in North America. This is only the second year the organization—which operates as a spinoff of The World’s 50 Best Bars—has come to North America.
And, for the second year in a row, only one B.C. bar made the list. But this time around it wasn’t Chinatown’s renowned Keefer Bar (which slid in at No. 25 last year) taking the honour. Instead, it was the classy Botanist, situated in the Fairmont Hotel, which swooped in at No. 19.
Overall, seven bars from Canada made the list, with Toronto’s Civil Liberties pacing the group at No. 12.
“Working in hospitality for as long as we all have on the Botanist team, we’ve watched as bars we admire and adore make their way onto the 50 Best list,” said Jeff Savage, head bartender at Botanist. “Now that the day has come, we count ourselves extremely blessed and honoured to be mentioned alongside superstars in our industry.” The 2023 ranking is reflective of the best bar experiences collated by a group of 260 anonymous voters, made up of cocktail experts, educators, authors, journalists, bartenders and bar owners from across North America. For this vote, the continent was divided into seven regions: Canada East; Canada West; USA Northeast; USA Midwest; USA West; USA South; Mexico and the Caribbean.