t’s 10:00 pm and the slick, well-appointed room is festooned with overflowing cocktail glasses, fashionable eyewear, expensive post-work gear and, to some degree, designer label knock-offs. Night after night, George - Yaletown’s latest cocktail-heavy boite - comes alive through the thirsty energy of a young, hip, well-dressed crowd.

Once your eyes adjust to the muted light, you see that this former warehouse dock (and more recently, a Seattle's Best Coffee) is divided into a sixty-seat lounge, thirty-seat patio and a six-seat private area. The lounge proper, designed by Mitchell Friedland, is an 1,800 square-foot funhouse adorned with plump couches upholstered in regal red, and a captivating glass chandelier that highlights the variety of hipsters lounging about the room, soaking up expertly-made martinis while DJ-driven beats slave to the money.

This high-concept lounge - yikes, "ultra lounge" - plays its gourmet cocktail hand - and what else would you expect from a venue that underplays its menu and goes over-the-top with a cocktail line-up. Look to the glut of new cocktail bars (of which this is one) as further clarification of that connection - mixologists of an inscrutable nature and purpose (and morality, it goes without saying) - have come into new venues we thought most sacred and taken what they wanted of our thirsty innocence.

Heady stuff for a bar that is essentially Jean George in a glass, and indeed it may ultimately be too slight a framework to support the amount of topical sociology we ask George to bear. Nonetheless, as the brainchild of Patrick Mercer, David Hannay (both of Brix) and Jay Garnett (Seattle’s Best Coffee), George’s mandate is immediately to be one of the best places to enjoy an adult beverage or two.

As it turns out, cocktails are my crack cocaine - pour something into a glass and I'll sparkle - and I've been craving a return to more quality mixology, particularly the kind that sends some semi-conscious pleasure afterward. Mind you, I'm a little weary of the average barkeeps, the ones that butcher the quality-tested drink list, with no respect for measurements. But the bartenders who work the bar at George take the time to get to know the four-page cocktail menu, and are familiar with the arsenal of fresh goods - peach puree, espresso, horseradish, pepper, mango and ginger - for which to concoct that little drink of yours.