The speakeasy beneath the Rabbit Hole on Sparks Street is Ottawa's best theatrical bar experience, which is a category that most cities don't take seriously enough to fill. The entrance is concealed. The vintage elevator arrives after you find it. The room below — low-lit, absinthe fountain centerpiece, eight cocktail signatures arranged around a single point of view — takes the ritual of drinking as seriously as the drinking itself.
The absinthe fountain service is the showpiece: the slow dilution over a sugar cube is not a performance for guests who don't know what absinthe is, but a genuine method of preparation that the bar believes produces the correct result. The cocktail menu draws on fat-washing, clarification, and dehydration in ways that build complexity without announcing the technique.
10BestBars.ca ranked Jackalope third in Ottawa in 2025. The right visit is a late evening — after a dinner elsewhere, when the room has enough people for the energy to feel right. Go with someone who will order the absinthe and not rush the process.
