BOTANIST || A Cocktail Driven Menu Celebrating British Columbia’s Beautiful Summer Season
It’s the scent of the forest after a summer rain, it’s the cozy smell of the dying embers of a woodfire at a sunset beach gathering, it’s the feeling of coming home to the island while nursing a cocktail in a teacup.
The 6-course cocktail-driven tasting menu curated by award-winning Bartender and Mixologist Jeff Savage celebrates the tastes and scents of British Columbia’s beautiful summer season. A highly personal storytelling experience, guests will be absorbed into Jeff’s stories of his inspiration for each cocktail.
This exclusive cocktail-driven menu is available at Botanist located in the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in downtown Vancouver, with limited seatings available on select days. There are only 2 seatings per evening, at 5:30 PM and 8:30 PM, and the menu is only available on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays. Hosted exclusively in the intimate VIP table at the entrance to the restaurant nestled next to the bar, guests can enjoy the privacy afforded by the room’s heavy velvet drapes.
The dish for the first course is presented in small golden tins
What’s so unique about Botanist Bar’s VIP Cocktail Experience? Restaurant menus are usually paired around the food, where cocktails are designed to align with a dish’s flavours. In a refreshing endeavour, Jeff Savage has taken the initiative to create a menu where the food is designed to align with the cocktail. Working with Botanist’s Executive Chef Hector Laguna and his team, Jeff Savage has created a delectable cocktail-driven experience that surprises and delights with each course.
FIRST COURSE
The journey begins with small gold tins filled with clarified English peas, dashi, cured egg, and crème fraîche, all of which hide the scrumptious caviar underneath. Whip the medley of flavours together and layer it on top of the accompanying seaweed crackers and you have the perfect sharing dish for the table. The cocktail is intentionally designed to look and feel like champagne, made with clarified English pea, fino sherry, serrano chilli-infused vodka, green chartreuse, and a house acid blend that is made to taste like lime juice. The refreshing taste cuts through the rich flavours of the caviar and crème fraîche.
Green peas topped with shaved cheese cover the rich caviar and pungent creme fraiche beneath. Blended together, the concoction serves up a dreamy and pleasing texture with every bite, especially when set atop the seaweed crackers.
Nothing beats fluffy housemade bread with real butter. Dig in.
SECOND COURSE
The second course is created to portray the feeling after summer rainfall. Jeff shares that the term ‘Petrichor’ is used to describe the scent of the earthy forest when rain falls on dry soil when the air is tinged with notes of sage, rosemary and cedar. The cocktail is topped with a tiny candied sage leaf meant to be savoured with each sip. This light cocktail is paired with the Summer Shoots Salad, which has a dome of tomato water of concentrated tomato essence at its center.
The second course cocktail is a blend of spanish and french vermouth, yerba mate infused pisco, sage, minto hydrosol, salt, and a single candied sage leaf best enjoyed with sips of this cocktail. This lighter cocktail pairs well with the refreshing flavours of the Summer Shoots Salad.
The Summer Shoots Salad is a refreshingly light dish that pairs well with the second course cocktail. Both carry notes of mint and lush greens. The tomato water dome at the center of the dish inspires a sense of wonder and delight from guests at the table.
THIRD COURSE
The third course features a wild chamomile-infused highland blanco tequila with elderflower, sencha tea, cherry blossom, and finished with a house-acid blend. A small, edible flower floats in the cocktail, and carries significant meaning as it symbolizes the partnership between Botanist and the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House Urban Farm project.
The dish pairing was phenomenal, as Executive Chef Hector Laguna has taken dehydrated shiitake mushrooms and rehydrated them with butter, creating concentrated flavour in the top layer which melts into the pan-seared diver scallop from Hokkaido and a six hour olive oil poached artichoke heart at the base.
This beautiful serving vessel is comprised of two parts, where one can set the shaped glass atop the marble stand.
Dehydrated Shitake mushrooms are rehydrated with butter for this dish, offering a truly melt-in-your-mouth experience.
FOURTH COURSE
The cocktail is earthy and is served in an irregular-shaped handmade vessel with chilled river rocks that make this drink both visually and palate pleasing. This is the cocktail that will remind you of the numerous campfires you have sat around. In the words of Jeff Savage, his memory that inspired this cocktail is “the feeling of home when you’re on the beach and the dog is happy.”
Chef paired this cocktail with a charred kampachi, set in the midst of a frothy broth consisting of corn, scallop liver, saffron and kohlrabi. It’s the scene of frothy waves lapping onto the shore; even the serving bowl depicts endless waves one atop another -- an apt symbol of the Pacific Northwest.
Handcrafted cocktail vessels offer a unique and memorable presentation. Mixologist Jeff Savage scavenged for cool river rocks to substitute for whiskey rocks — a personal touch guests will appreciate.
Depicts a scene of the frothing ocean waves lapping against the shore. Even the vessel is designed with a wave pattern.
FIFTH COURSE
The fifth course is served in a tall vintage etched glass vessel, where the generous layer of foam wraps in the aroma until the first sip. Candied reindeer lichen wild foraged from Pender Island sits on top of the bed of foam. A blend of oakmoss (foraged ingredients used in perfume), salted and smoked maple syrup reminds one of the scents of the forest floor. The fruity and zesty flavours of the cocktail help to cut through the heavier pan-roasted bison strip loin served with preserved cherry and maple jus. An unexpected highlight of this course would be the porcini mushroom, which presents an intense burst of flavour; a thoughtful plating detail, which Jeff shares as ‘the edible garden’ at the stem of the mushroom, adds a touch of whimsy to the dish.
We can hardly imagine the unbelievably arm power that one must wield in order to achieve this level of foam for a cocktail. The reindeer lichen daintily balanced on top was wild foraged from Pender Island.
The maple syrup poached porcini was a pleasant surprise with its supreme concentration of flavour. The pan-roasted bison strip loin paired well with the scotch cocktail in the fifth course.
Don’t let the simplicity of the plating fool you — the concentrated flavours of this dish will surprise and delight you (especially the porcini mushroom!) The ‘edible garden’ at the stem of the mushroom is a playful plating detail.
SIXTH COURSE
The final sixth course is served in a teapot, with serving cups holding large square ice cubes stamped with the Botanist logo. Jeff Savage shares that this creation was inspired by “the memory of a traveller and this cocktail is a memory of a pina colada.”
The cocktail features pineapple husk-infused Jamaican rum, coconut-infused vodka, dry curacao, ginger lime, sencha tea, oleo, and clarified milk. Clarified milk is created by pouring the cocktail ingredients over milk, leaving it for 24 hours where the proteins in the cocktail ingredients and the fat in the milk separate from each other. The mixture is then strained to result in a silky texture for the cocktail. An assortment of exotic fruits was used to create the accompanying dessert for this cocktail, with a coconut meringue topper hiding the mixture of pineapple and mango, passion cream and calamansi sorbet.
The sixth course presents a ritual where guests around the table could serve each other this tea-infused cocktail, encouraging engagement at the table to wrap the evening’s culinary adventure.
Breaking apart the coconut meringue on the dessert reveals the delicious medley of exotic fruits and cream below.
Botanist’s VIP Cocktail Experience gives you the feeling of travelling through Jeff’s personal memories, featuring ingredients he and his partner personally wild foraged from nearby islands and forests for an authentic taste of British Columbia. The entire menu is a labour of love, where the innovative and unexpected flavours will bring you to the forest, the islands, beaches and beyond.
To find out more and to book your reservation, visit Botanist’s website.
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1038 Canada Pl, Vancouver, BC
The intimate VIP Cocktail Experience takes place in this room just off the entrance of the restaurant separate from the main restaurant dining room.