The city’s best party returns March 2 to 9 with more than 40 events, dozens of spirit brands and VCW-partner venues all across the city.

With fewer than 30 days left until the fourth annual Vancouver Cocktail Week presented by The Alchemist magazine, it’s time to nail down your tickets for the best seminars, most exciting pop-ups and unmissable signature events like the closing Black & White Gala.

VCW25’s schedule is packed with more than 40 events, starting with the traditional Signature Sunday Cocktail Brunch (this year at ARC Restaurant at the Fairmont Waterfront) and featuring seminars, tastings, master classes, parties and burlesque and drag shows. Plus there are cocktail-paired dinners, tea parties and other culinary events, including the Cherry Blossom Tipsy Tea at Notch 8 in the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver and the “Festa della Primavera” dinner at Carlino.

And that doesn’t even include the popular (unticketed) Cinq à Sept series of elevated happy hours, which will be held at VCW partnering bars all over town.

In fact, one of the best ways to discover those venues and explore the city’s talented cocktail culture is by joining one of the neighbourhood cocktail crawls that offer a taste of what the city’s most exciting bartenders are shaking up.

But if there is one event not to miss, it’s the closing night Black & White Gala on March 9. The signature event of Vancouver Cocktail Week will be held in the gorgeous Spanish Ballroom at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia and features live music, a DJ, elevated bar snacks, more than two dozen premium brand sponsors and, of course, more cocktail creativity than you could fit into a bootlegger’s bathtub.

And, because no celebration of community can go without supporting those who make it possible, Vancouver Cocktail Week is proud to announce that a portion of ticket sales will go to our charity partner, Mind The Bar, a Vancouver-based organization that supports mental health wellness in the hospitality industry across Canada.

Tickets for Vancouver Cocktail Week presented by The Alchemist are now on sale. For tickets or to browse the Vancouver Cocktail Week 2025 program guide, visit thealchemistmagazine.ca/vcw/. A print version of the program guide is also available at bars, restaurants and private liquor retailers around Vancouver.

Vancouver Cocktail Week 2024 began and ended with the signature events you wouldn’t want to miss

From seminars to neighbourhood crawls to cocktail-paired dinners and bar-star guest shifts, Vancouver Cocktail Week presented by The Alchemist has something for everyone who enjoys raising a glass or two. But the biggest, best, most unmissable parties are the signature events that open and close the week—and this year was no exception.

The Seminars

Chinatown speakeasy Laowai opened its freezer-style door to an international cohort of bar colleagues, who gave daytime seminars recounting their personal journeys to world-class status, then held court in the evenings with guest shifts showcasing their creations.

On March 3, the co-founders of Chinese bar Hope & Sesame, hospitality school pals Bastien Ciocca and Andrew Ho, recounted their journey bringing the first speakeasy-style modern bar to southern China, in Guangzhou. Today, they have several bars plus a spirits consultancy (catering to the likes of Ralph Lauren’s hospitality group) in their mini-empire, ranging from café-fronted speakeasies to heritage-themed Chinese bars and elegant, tasting-menu cocktail flights. Their San You bars feature all-Chinese spirits and produce, a perfect segue to their brief session on baijiu, the Chinese spirit in which Laowai specializes (with 50-plus bottlings, the largest selection in Canada). Illustrated with bottlings from SinoCan agency, Ciocca and Ho ran through the major styles of baijiu, and how to use it in cocktails. Bartenders in the room took notes on creating split-base cocktail and using baijiu smartly, as in Hope & Sesame’s famous Moutai Milk Punch, a clarified cocktail with Black Forest Cake flavours, served later that night of Laowai.