Vancouver World Bartender Exchange | Penang

Details

• February 5, 2026
• 8:00 PM to 12:00 AM
• $40.00*

For the second year, we offer a twist on our super popular Vancouver World Chef Exchange which has us reaching out to our friends in the global cocktail community to invite them to Vancouver. The result? The world’s greatest bartenders join us for a one-night-only takeover of one our own city's favourite bars.

Backdoor Bodega @ Prophecy

Co-Presented by Destination Vancouver
Supported by Air Canada and The Westin Bayshore, Vancouver

Prophecy, Canada's Best New Bar will welcome the award-winning team from Backdoor Bodega for an evening of creativity and a celebration of Penang's rich food and beverage culture. Awarded "World's Best Cocktail Menu 2025" by 50Best, Backdoor Bodega's founder Yung Shen Koh and bar manager Thanesh Sivakumar will join Prophecy's beverage director Jeff Savage, along with the team behind Potluck Hawker which will be popping up for one final time, serving classic dishes from the region. 

Coming all the way from Penang, Malaysia, Backdoor Bodega is a love letter to what makes the UNESCO World Heritage site they call home so special. By crafting cocktails inspired by the dynamic food and culture of Penang, Backdoor Bodega has recently gained international attention, receiving both Asia's and World’s Best Cocktail Menu. 

Tickets Information

$40 per ticket - (19+)  Includes a reservation, 1x welcome drink from Prophecy's menu and 1x welcome drink from Backdoor Bodega's menu and 1x food item from Potluck Hawker.

About Backdoor Bodega

Once touted as “the most elusive of George Town’s speakeasies” by Lonely Planet, Backdoor Bodega is an overpriced “pin shop” with an award-winning menu titled “The Backdoor Bodega Guide To Penang” that features a roster of specialty cocktails unique to Penang with ingredients such as ulam, belacan, Penang-made soy sauce, nutmeg fruit, and more. Opened discreetly with zero fanfare behind an actual clothing store in November 2016, this owner-operated speakeasy with a small team of self-taught bartenders has since been recognised as one of the city’s top cocktail bars, becoming the first ever Penang bar to be listed among 100 of Asia’s best bars by Asia’s 50 Best Bars in 2022. Siete Misterios Best Cocktail Menu Award as part of Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025 | Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025 — #64 (2025), #52 (2024), #97 (2022)

About Yung Shen Koh

Winner of The Bar Awards’ Bartender of the Year (Penang) 2019, Shen is a self-taught bartender and owner of No Bar Here and Backdoor Bodega, one of Penang’s pioneering speakeasy cocktail bars, and is an honouree of the Asia’s Most Influential 2022 list by Tatler Asia for his contributions to the Penang cocktail industry. Shen is also the organising host of the annual Penang Cocktail Week and Bar Show Malaysia, and a proprietor of Drafted beer garden.

About Thanesh Sivakumar

Professionally trained as a French culinary chef, Thanesh began his F&B career at the tender age of 16, working his way through various fine dining establishments in his hometown island of Penang before eventually venturing into bartending at Backdoor Bodega in 2021. With his vast knowledge and experience from the kitchen, Thanesh’s culinary sense brought a new dynamic to the execution of cocktails at the bar, and played a vital role in the creation of Backdoor Bodega’s peranakan-inspired menu. Within two years of bartending, Thanesh has managed to clinch the global champion title of the Jameson Black Barrel Bartender Competition in 2023, and went on to become the Malaysian champion for the Rémy Martin Bartender Talent Academy competition in 2024. In September 2025, Thanesh completed a cocktail competition hat-trick by winning the Campari Red Hands Malaysia 2025, his third title in three years.

About Jeff Savage

Jeff Savage was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Through his early life, Jeff was deeply influenced by the tenacity and dedication of his father, who owned and operated a small independent business – as well as his mother, who worked both with his father and as a catering chef. Jeff’s deeply imbued love of hospitality has been informed by the abundance of community service and regular house parties his parents threw for the people they loved. Jeff left Calgary the day after his 19 th birthday to go explore the world.

When he returned to study at the University of Alberta, instead of re-signing his contract with the university sustainability office, he walked down the street and secured himself a job as the opening bartender at an upstart new neighborhood bar in Edmonton and, from there, Jeff’s passion for a longstanding career behind the bar had cemented itself.

After 5 years at Three Boars in Edmonton, Jeff also worked at Proof Cocktail Bar and Deane House in Calgary, before heading West to Vancouver and beginning his period of high accolades after taking a position at Botanist Bar, which netted Jeff the 2019-20 Canada’s 50 Best Best Bartender Award, 2022 MICHELIN Exceptional Cocktails Award, and he oversaw Botanist being recognized on both Canada’s 50 Best Bars and the World’s 50 Best Bars lists.

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