The Canadian Rockies in Alberta have long drawn travelers for the mountains, but two Fairmont properties in Banff National Park give people just as good a reason to stick around for a drink. At the Fairmont Banff Springs, Rundle Bar occupies a piece of the hotel's own history, while an hour down the road, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise pairs its Fairview Bar with one of the more striking views in the country. Both rooms lean on their surroundings, but each finds its own way of putting them in the glass.

Rundle Bar

The Fairmont Banff Springs has been called the Castle in the Rockies since it opened in 1888, and more than a century later the hotel still anchors the town of Banff. At its center, in what was once the hotel's original lobby, sits Rundle Bar.

The hotel is also famous for something entirely separate from its bars and dining rooms. The Banff Springs is home to a number of ghost stories. The best known is the Ghost Bride, dating back to the late 1920s, whose story tells of a young couple marrying at the hotel and the bride slipping and falling to her death on one of the marble staircases as she descended in her wedding gown. Staff and guests have since reported seeing a veiled figure moving on the stairs or a figure in a wedding dress dancing in the upstairs ballroom.

Rundle Bar occupies the space that served as the front entrance to the Banff Springs Hotel from 1928 until the late 1990s. In 2020 the hotel closed the room for a five million dollar renovation. The result preserved the bones of the historic building while giving the space a new identity: a two story main bar built around a rolling library ladder, custom bronze and wood engraving along the counter, exposed brick, and a fireplace tucked into one corner. Up on Mezzanine II, a smaller cocktail bar looks straight out at Cascade Mountain, and a stage with a grand piano sets the tone for the après hours. For anyone wanting privacy, there's a speakeasy style room hidden behind a wall of bookshelves and floor to ceiling doors on the main level.

Step outside and the room's second identity takes over. The Rundle Patio opens for the season each May, weather permitting, and runs through the warmer months with a direct line of sight to Mount Rundle and the surrounding peaks. Canada's 100 Best named it the country's Best Patio in 2024, and it's easy to see why once you're sitting there with a glass of something cold as the light shifts across the mountainside in the evening.

Jacob "Jake" Dolgy, General Manager of Rundle Bar, has helped reshape the bar program after its reopening. Under his leadership the bar built out a food and beverage program strong enough to earn a Pin from The Pinnacle Guide, a recognition he later described as hard won by the whole team rather than any one person.

A highlight from the bar menu is Ember, a blend of Michter's Small Batch Bourbon, The Macallan 12, and Glenturret 12, brought together with Lapsang Souchong maple and orange bitters. The whiskies give the drink its base of caramel, dried fruit, and oak, while the Lapsang Souchong maple layers in a campfire smokiness that echoes the fireplace in the room. Orange bitters lift the finish with a citrus peel note that keeps the smoke and sweetness in check.

Whether you're at Rundle Bar for an Old Fashioned at the mezzanine bar with Cascade Mountain in the window, or a glass of something cold on the patio with Mount Rundle turning gold in the evening light, it remains one of the more complete bar experiences in the Canadian Rockies, ghosts included.

The Fairview Bar

Set within Banff National Park, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louisehas long been one of the Rocky Mountains' best known retreats. Lately, the drinks program has given people another reason to visit, alongside the alpine views.

Beverage Director Gavin Miller runs the program. He came up through Montreal's cocktail scene, and his drinks lean on classical technique without feeling stuck in the past. Each one is built around a sense of place, so what's in the glass matches the landscape outside the window.

Fairview Bar is where that comes together. The room mixes old world detail with a more modern feel, and the menu does the same, moving between well made classics and original drinks. This summer's menu is built around a theme Miller calls Peaks and Palms, a play on the two kinds of places that shape the bar's guests. The Peaks are close at hand, drawn from the mountains and glaciers visible through the bar's arched windows. The Palms sit further off, standing in for the travels, flavors, and memories that guests and staff alike carry with them from warmer, more distant shores. The result is a menu that moves between crisp alpine notes and tropical warmth, sometimes within the same glass.

A standout drink on the Fairview Bar menu is Cane & Cask, by bartender Mmahki. The cocktail features a house rum blend, Balvenie Caribbean Cask, banana cordial, white miso, and chocolate bitters. It drinks like banana bread, but with more going on than that description suggests. Smith & Cross gives it a funky, ester driven overripe banana note up front, and Mount Gay adds vanilla, caramel, and baking spice underneath. The Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask finish brings honey, vanilla, and Speyside floral notes, and its rum cask influence loops back around to tropical fruit, coconut, and toffee, tying the whole thing together. Banana cordial keeps the fruit bright and adds some acidity, and a white miso saline gives it a savory, umami edge.

The setting is what makes Fairview Bar worth seeking out in the first place. Lake Louise sits below a glacier, and the color of the water shifts through the day, from a pale turquoise in full sun to a deeper green as clouds move over it. The surrounding peaks stay snowcapped well into summer, and the whole scene barely changes from how it would have looked a century ago. Both the Fairview Bar and the neighboring Lakeview Lounge have large windows facing the lake and the Victoria Glacier behind it. The Lakeview Lounge works well for an afternoon drink, with the water close enough to feel like part of the room. At night, the Fairview Bar turns into a quieter spot to watch the alpenglow fade over the lake with a drink in hand, the Peaks and Palms menu offering a reminder that a mountain view and a memory of somewhere far away can sit comfortably side by side.

In winter, the drinking moves outside onto the lake itself. Once it freezes, the hotel builds an ice bar on the lakefront terrace, made from roughly 240 blocks of ice, each weighing about 300 pounds. It usually runs from mid-December through late February, weather permitting, with the bar, the benches, and even the Fairmont logo carved from ice or built from snow and water. The menu stays simple and geared toward the cold: mulled wine, spiked hot chocolate, and other warm drinks meant to be finished quickly before they cool off. The bar sits close enough to the ice skating rink and the Victoria Glacier that guests can skate up for a warm drink.

Canadian Rocky Mountains

Calgary