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| Sleight has worked at 50 Best since 2023 |
After digesting the 2026 rankings of North America's 50 Best Bars, I still found it hard to believe that two new entries from New York, Bar Snack and Schmuck landed No. 3 and No. 4 respectively. What happened to climbing up the ranks?
I had to ask Emma Sleight, head of content for 50 Best Bars and Hotels at the after party, an afternoon session at The Botanist in the Fairmont Pacific Rim.
Sitting in the private room of the restaurant with three other PR representatives sitting in, Sleight at first said there are always new entries in every list they do.
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| The awards were held on Wednesday night |
She didn't exactly give a clear answer.
"It's about the same. It's quite a lot. I would say it's quite high, but it's not outrageously high. It's the nature of the game. The bars industry is so dynamic and it moves so quickly that new openings happen so frequently. And we always encourage people to think about the awards. It's a snapshot of that particular time where people are traveling, what people are identifying with and the way the voting works," Sleight says.
The voting. According to the 50 Best website, 300 voters are "trusted and well-traveled experts" who are bartenders, bar aficionados and drinks media.
"You can never predict the list. It is really just where those people are finding their very best cocktail experiences. Makes it exciting," she says.
But that still doesn't explain Bar Snack and Schmuck's literal meteoric rise out of nowhere.
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| Circled in red are Vancouver bars |
"There's no one thing that we can ever say that would explain why a bar has moved because everyone loves to think that they know who our voters are, and they don't. Voters are completely anonymous," Sleight adds.
Really? The academy chairs are listed on the 50 Best website. If an academy chair walks into a bar with a group of people, surely some of them are voters... and if someone makes a reservation, they will be researched to see who they are. In today's intensive social media landscape and the internet, there are ways to figure out who people are.
However Sleight begs to differ.
"Often if people are saying they're voters, they're not. And I appreciate that sounds like a trite response, but the thing we do is always encourage any bars where anyone has ever said they are a voter. We ask them to tell us, and we check and we do independent investigations, and we frequently contact that voter and we say, 'Hey, you're no longer a voter, and you never will be ever again, because you've reached your anonymity.'"
She later added that 25 percent of the voting academy are "refreshed", and apparently "historic voters" are changed as well. "It's never a guarantee that you're a voter, which also helps disrupt that people knowing people are voters, we're trying to do everything we can."
At this point I should have asked if bars have ever called out so-called voters, and how about imposing term limits on academy chairs? They seem to keep these positions for years and years.
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| Sleight is a cocktail aficionado |
By appearances it looks like a popularity contest, to which she said "possibly".
Social media is a big way to get exposure, as well as collaborations with other bars in different cities and countries. The Keefer Bar owners Keenan Hood and Amber Bruce hinted this when they said they traveled a lot this year and would do so again this year, and give their staff more opportunities to travel as well. Perhaps that partially explains their massive jump from No. 28 to No. 7 to be Canada's Best Bar?
For the record Sleight went to The Keefer Bar last year and this year.
In 2025 she also went to Laowai, June on Cambie (it had just opened), Botanist Bar and Prophecy.
This year Sleight visited Lala (basement of June on Cambie), Meo, Bao Bei.
She doesn't have a vote, but there are people following her on Instagram, seeing where she's traveling, and what she's eating and drinking...
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