Barkeeps use egg whites to create a frothy head for certain cocktails.

In Bambudda, bar manager Tarquin Melnyk and his associate, Dylan Williams, have brought in a vegan substitute to crown the pisco sour cocktail at the modern Chinese restaurant in Vancouver’s Gastown district.

“We are doing a product that is totally new that people don’t have a frame of reference for it. We thought that the best cocktail to introduce it would be the pisco sour because it’s probably one of the familiar drinks that traditionally has egg whites in it that people know,” Melnyk related in a phone interview with the Straight.

According to Melnyk, he and Williams worked with Sam and Philip Unger of the food company Ms. Betters Bitters to produce the plant-based foam.

The partners kept Bambudda owner Ray Loy in the loop, and the proprietor got excited about what Melnyk described as the world’s first vegan substitute for egg whites in cocktails.

“Bambudda is the perfect place to do something like this because we are so primary in our cocktail sales,” Melnyk said. “I mean we sell wine and beer, but nowhere near the levels our cocktails sell.”

The bar manager noted that even non-vegans are trying the establishment’s vegan pisco sour out of interest because it’s a “unique product”.

For vegans, it provides a perfect pair: “We’re getting more and more vegans showing up asking that they have a vegan meal, and that we make their cocktails vegan.”