Cocktails at The Courtney Room Bar

The Chateau Victoria's hotel bar, Canada-nominated, with rare vintage spirits and leather banquettes built for slow, low-lit evenings.

A 30-seat art-filled room in Sidney for French-inspired Peninsula cooking and a smoke-and-rum cocktail worth making the drive for.

A tiny, nature-obsessed cocktail bar ranked Top 100 in North America, where the drinks menu reads like a naturalist's field guide.

Climb above a Victoria bar to find Spanish tapas since 2014 and a happy hour with 50% off the wine list.

An Uptown cocktail bar with an award-nodded drink list and Indian small plates built for lingering over a second round.

The Toptable group's Victoria showpiece: Japanese-style raw bar, West Coast plates, and the atrium is where the intimate seats live.

A moody Bastion Square wine bar with oysters, blankets in the back courtyard, and wines that reward asking questions.

The quieter, candlelit alternative to the Empress: Victorian afternoon tea in an 1890s mansion, five minutes from the Inner Harbour.

Down Trounce Alley in Victoria, a snug tapas bar where the sherry list is one of the biggest in Canada.

A tiny face-to-face bouchon in Oak Bay where the wine list has won awards and the elbow room has been intentionally omitted.

A working single-malt distillery and craft brewery under one roof, where a 45-minute tour ends in a tasting flight.

A rum-forward 1970s tropical lounge on North America's best-bars list, where downtown Victoria vanishes the moment you walk in.

A Sidney fromagerie by day and wine bar by evening, owned by two wine-shop refugees who cut 150-plus cheeses to order.

A properly small room on Herald Street pouring funky low-intervention bottles and chef Billy Nguyen's seasonal plates, worth every booking.