We Drink Here
A Local’s Guide to Avoiding Average Cocktails in Victoria, BC
There’s a long-standing rumor that Victoria has the second-most restaurant seats per capita in North America. While such ‘listicles’ aren’t exactly subjected to intense peer review, Victoria does seem to make a legitimate case for a top-ten finish. Again, that’s not just in Canada–that’s all of North America.
Not bad for a muddy fort that was the epicenter of the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic. (Our quaint little hometown was also at one time North America’s leading importer of opium. So it hasn’t all been bad times.)
While its disproportionate number of hospitality establishments presents numerous challenges to ownership and management–customers win! We have a range of options at every level, and an open manifesto that only the fittest will survive. Competition is fierce and deadly. The lowest hanging fruit will be fed to the marmots.
In a town that fears change as much as a major earthquake, any new drinking den must be pretty special to get accepted into the canon of local hotspots. Here are the few that have–and continue to–run the gauntlet. The Sacred Few, whose legends bear acknowledgement. The cream that has risen to the top of the Cement Mixer.
The bars that actual Victorians adore. Might see you there.
Little Jumbo Restaurant & Bar
Legendary for: Classic cocktails, modern inventiveness
Born in 2013 and strategically hidden from the public like a circus freak, Little Jumbo was a breath of fresh air: A difficult-to-find sliver of the Big Smoke right in our little fishing encampment. While Victoria’s cocktail culture has shifted seismically (did someone say earthquake?!) Jumbo was a true OG, using techniques like nitrogen-chilled glassware, flavoured ice cubes, live smoke infusions, and much more.
Jumbo continues to push the envelope, now looking to the past for inspiration and designing a new cocktail aesthetic by superimposing modern creativity, ingredients, and techniques on top of “The Classics.”
Case in point: This riff on a Gibson (a martini garnished with cocktail onions):
Onions replaced by pickled seaweed? What salty sorcery is this?!
Wind Cries Mary
Legendary for: A stacked team of local bar greats–who genuinely give a shit about your drinking experience
You know it in your guts. When you sit down at a bar, you can tell lip service from actual hospitality. You can also tell by watching a bartender whether they are in control. Confident. Competent.
Wind Cries Mary’s bar team will keep you transfixed. Their bartending philosophy is easy-to-understand and approachable: “Simple, local ingredients, done well and treated properly.” But this belittles the sophistication of their offerings.
There’s no foams. No gels. No gee-whiz techniques. Just 40 cocktails every year that reflect the seasons and where we live. But they’ll be 40 worth tasting. Because they put in the work, and do it humbly and with purpose.
Clarke & Co
Legendary for: Small bar. Big City vibes.
Outside Clarke & Co’s busy downtown street corner is quintessential Victoria, but that first step inside its small, fishbowl of a room takes you to any of the world’s major cities. New York. Singapore. Berlin.
‘Cool’ might be the hardest thing on earth to create. But there’s a sense of it in this room. From vintage bitters lined up along the bar, to the ‘we don’t care but we really do care’ attitude. There’s a swagger. A confidence.
It might be mistaken for pretentious, but it’s not. It’s authentic, friendly, and has a great energy to complement an extensive selection of whiskeys and finely crafted cocktails.
Cenote
Legendary for: World-class cocktails and a ‘misfit’ bar culture–where the industry goes to drink
“Sink to our level” is the tagline for subterranean gem Cenote–expect both a physical and spiritual descent. Enter its underbelly and find yourself in the company of philosophers, art freaks, hospitality insiders, and other miscreants seeking refuge from a world they weren’t built to handle.
You’ll likely overhear conversations about cryptocurrency, the zodiac, and Hellenistic Stoicism, against the deft clanging of tins and shakers, as some of Victoria’s most-talented and least-attention-seeking bartenders deliver rock-solid versions and reinterpretations of cocktails new and old. It’s all dough, no show. Check your flair at the dark doorway.
PS: Tuesday night it’s the best Margarita joint in Victoria.
Citrus & Cane
Legendary for: Beautiful room to watch beautiful people drink authentic tiki cocktails.
We like our cocktails just like our romances: Tall, sweet, and boozy to the point of blackout. Beware Citrus and Cane–it’s pure seduction from the first sip. The warm wood and pastel palette of its grand barroom are the perfect backdrop for their bright, tropically-inspired surges of color and flavor.
It’s a bewildering combination of kitsch and chic that seems to defy time and place. Tiki can easily go so wrong–but in the experienced hands of Citrus and Cane’s stellar service team, it all goes so right.
None of these accolades are a well-kept secret–it can be difficult to get a seat. But leaving it will be harder. You have been warned.
Clive’s Classic Lounge
Legendary for: Forefather of Victoria’s cocktail scene in iconic hotel bar
Yes, it’s in their name–but there is something inherently ‘classic’ about Clive’s. Like if Rick’s Café had been rebuilt in the 1990’s by Pacific Northwesterners. This is not a ‘hip’ space, with only traces of irony at best. But there is an air of vinyl and neon luxury, the hospitality is unwavering, and in the absence of hipster fluff there’s a realness in the quality of cocktails that is unparalleled in the city.
It’s a throwback to when cocktails were crafted with an artisanal intensity, a reverence for their great tradition. Imagine ordering espresso from a small-town Italian barista, versus the tattooed art student at the new Wes Anderson themed café in the most recently gentrified part of town. That’s the realness.
There’s no substitute for depth of knowledge and dedication. There’s no substitute for a true ‘classic’.
