Vodka Tasting in the Ice Room at Bearfoot Bistro

A shag-carpeted 1970s speakeasy hidden behind a fake accounting office, where the cocktails are far better than the decor suggests.

A tiny Commercial Drive room built on Italian aperitivo culture, amaro walls, and booths sized for exactly two.

Follow the single red light behind a Main Street furniture shop down a graffiti stairwell into Vancouver's most satisfying open secret.

Dim light, a sake flight, and small plates you have to negotiate over, which is how a low-key izakaya date runs three hours.

A Mount Pleasant urban winery fermenting natural BC wine in buried Georgian clay jars, with Saturday jazz and grocery-style cheese plates.

The old Old Crow room on Front Street, now pouring cocktails named after star signs until eleven.

Off the Moda Hotel lobby on Seymour: low-lit, Italian small plates, marble bar, and a daily 2-to-5 happy hour worth knowing about.

The one properly grown-up cocktail room in Surrey City Centre, tucked into the lobby of the Civic Hotel a block from the SkyTrain.

A gloriously retro sunken circular bar a block off English Bay, where happy hour, low light, and the best free sunset in the city do all the work.

Arguably Steveston's best patio, with a rotating tap list and a flight-friendly board for finding out whose beer takes are a dealbreaker.

Hot pools, saunas, a eucalyptus steam room and cold plunges in old-growth forest minutes from Whistler Village, with a golden rule of silence.

Dundarave's small Italian bar with the raised, flower-hedged patio, where one glass has a well-documented habit of turning into three hours.

An upscale whisky lounge in Central City with a deep whisky wall, a long BC and imported wine list and a happy hour that runs twice a day.

North Van's original nano-brewery, still pouring one of the best IPA lineups in the region out of a tasting room that has never once tried to be fancy.