Designing the Drink Experience

From Mexico City to New York to Vancouver, a new generation of cocktail bars use light, colour, and design to create a multi-sensory experience before the first sip hits your lips.

Image: Rose Gold Margarita from Barchef NYC

How can you capture the northern lights in a cocktail? Or create a space that invites guests to be a part of the process? Or take them on a journey to a forest floor in the middle of a concrete jungle?

Experimental bars in three very distinct North American cities are going beyond taste, creating immersive experiences that transport guests from one world to another.

Prophecy Bar

Vancouver is renowned for its stunning mountain and ocean views, but once you step into Prophecy Bar, all of that fades away.

Located in the basement of the storied Rosewood Hotel Georgia, the space has been transformed by owners Justin Mensah-Coker, Michael Rose, and Teddy Wilkie, along with Bar Director Jeff Savage, into a captivating world of its own.

Dim lights evoke the feeling of floating in amber, with rotating artwork on the walls, different natural textures throughout and a menu that reads like a fireside story. It's easy to lose hours or a sense of the outside world while savouring one of the incredibly inventive cocktails.

"The idea of storytelling is really what resonated with me," said Savage. "When it came to the idea of building something special in the space and in the way we kind of break down the menu, instead of using spirit categories or a bunch of different ways you can do it or styles of cocktail, we do it by theme of story."

Top Left: Jeff Savage strains a cocktail at Prophecy
Bottom Left: “Souvenir” cocktail
Right: “Northern Lights” cocktail (image courtesy of Maggi Mei)

Each section is titled with names like "The Living Tapestry," "Home Fires & Wandering Spirits," and "Love of Land and Sea," and its cocktail descriptions read like little vignettes from a much larger story.

For instance, the “Souvenir,” served in a Russian doll that emits mist when opened, is introduced with: "Has that dreamcatcher in your rearview mirror caught anything yet? A journey home listening to Boygenius, and an ode to the things we bring back home with us – both in our suitcases and in our hearts."

Story is not the only way Savage and his team guide guests through the menu. The drinks are colour-coded by flavour profile: red for spirituous, yellow for refreshing, green for herbaceous, and pink for lush.

"What resonates with me the most—outside of a delicious drink—is that I just love the depth of being able to explain to somebody why we're inspired by something," said Savage. "Maybe not everybody wants that, but we have the depth in our experience, our ingredients and our cocktails where people can read the menu like it's a storybook."

One cocktail that's already becoming synonymous with Prophecy Bar is called Northern Lights. Made with Tanqueray No. 10 Gin, Labrador tea, grapefruit oils, elderflower, lemon, and B2. It's served in an LED-lit cloche that creates a strobing light effect, shifting colours, much like the aurora borealis.

"We want to encapsulate an experience in a drink like that, like we said, with the idea of walking into the space and having the lights, the music, the atmosphere, and the textures of the room and then the menu with the world building within that. Then the cocktail itself, is that final experience of getting something that really wraps all it together," said Savage.

Top Left: “Martini Fromage” and “M&M” cocktails on FO+MA bartop
Bottom Left: Jose Olivas experiments in the FO+MA Lab
Right: “Alotta’-Butta'” cocktail

FORM + MATTER (FO+MA)

Located in one of Mexico City's coolest neighbourhoods, FORM + MATTER (FO+MA) fits right in with its sleek design, precise cocktails and laboratory that gives guests a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the process.

The vibe at FO+MA can be described as intentional. Everything is thought out—like custom bar wells that keep bartenders facing the guests so they stay engaged, and a long communal table in the middle of the bar that encourages everyone to connect. Even the cocktails are made with a focus on sensory experience.

"The cocktail program at FO+MA is a cocktail program that's run on thinking a little outside the box, seeking innovation and always and most importantly, seeking intentionality and justification," said Jose Olivas, co-owner of FO+MA. "We don't do things just for the sake of doing it. We do it for a purpose. The purpose has to be in terms of experience or flavour."

This ethos is derived from the idea that everything is matter, but you can turn that matter and give it form, hence FORM + MATTER.

"The best example I use is agave. The plant is the matter, and the form becomes tequila, mezcal, or anything made from it. We use that as inspiration, taking an ingredient as the matter and giving it form as a cocktail.”

“The name also stands for how human we are, for our decision to work in this industry, and for the form through which we do it: hospitality. So that's how form and matter stand, either in mission, vision, and execution for the way we look at service and the way we look at cocktails."

At the back of the bar is the laboratory, where guests can watch the experimentation process unfold through a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Equipped with tools such as a centrifuge, sous vide, and rotovap, allowing for the crafting, fermenting, clarifying, and perfecting of cocktail ingredients.

The menu itself is playful with names like "Kim-let," "Mi-So Honey," and "Lychee Martini Again?!"

One standout cocktail is the "Alotta’-Butta'," inspired by what Olivas called the Western European practice of "abusing" butter. The cocktail is created by fat-washing rum with butter; the butter is then repurposed into a cordial using citric acid and sugar. The leftover butter from these processes are mixed with sugar, caramelized, placed into a siphon with N2O, and heated in a sous vide to create a hot butter foam that sits on top of the cocktail when served.

“It's more than just doing drinks. I want to challenge [the staff] and myself to always find the reason why we are doing what we are doing, whether through techniques or the cocktail's storytelling,” said Olivas.

Left: “Essence of Fall” from BarChef NYC
Right: “Saikei Vieux Carré” from BarChef NYC

BarChef NY

If you want a truly avant-garde experience in Midtown Manhattan, then Frankie Solarik's BarChef NY is the moment.

Solarik opened the first BarChef in Toronto in 2008, and it quickly became known as one of the world’s most innovative bars. Since then, he’s built a reputation for experimentalism, blurring the line between mixology, art, and alchemy while infusing emotion into each drink. By 2022, he served as a judge on Netflix’s Drink Masters, and in 2025, BarChef NY opened, marking the next evolution of his vision.

It's been called “gastronomic theatre” and "haute couture for your palate" by the press, and a quick flip through their social media will show you why. These aren't cocktails, they are cocktail-scapes, each one carefully crafted into a world of its own.

Much like Prophecy Bar in Vancouver, Solarik is creating a vignette for guests, inviting them to step into a different world or story with each cocktail in their "Modernist Series."

Take the “Essence of Fall”: Brandy, balsam fir, rosemary, maple, and Madeira, served with spherified maple ice and Fernet Branca. It arrives surrounded by aromatic greenery like cedar, moss, and soil, with a misty fog rolling across the table.

Its description paints a picture of autumn morning hikes through an Ontario forest, transporting the guest from the dense urban centre of NYC to the wild forest hundreds of kilometres away.

The “Saikei Vieux Carré”, which is comprised of Yamazaki 12-year mixed with lapsang, lychee, and concord grape, is served with a literal bonsai tree to evoke the sense of walking through a zen garden. The “Golden Honey Penicillin” with beeswax-infused Scotch, honey, lemongrass, ginger and saffron, attempts to encapsulate the essence of the sun in a cocktail.

Guests looking for a more straightforward experience can order from the “Contemporary” menu, with less fanfare but equally impressive profiles. Take the “Palo Santo,” effectively an Old Fashioned, made with cedar-infused Gooderham & Worts whisky, palo santo-infused ice, and balsam fir bitters.