It’s no longer just about a carefully crafted cocktail or a stellar wine list. Hotel bars are upping the ante on experiences – carefully curated programs that not only keep guests spending money at the bar but also bring locals in as repeat customers. Here are five hotel bars that offer the kind of experiences guests can’t find anywhere else.
1. Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia
Named for Malaysia’s native Trigona bee, which produces some of the world’s most sought-after wild honey, Bar Trigona is all about honey and the local flora of the Malaysian rain forest. Honey is incorporated into tastings and cocktails. “It’s always amazing to see the guest’s reaction when we bring out our honey flights on the table for them to try,” says Ashish Sharma, head bartender. “Malaysia has so much to offer when it comes to local products, but so many people, even local Malaysians, do not know about it.”
Sharma says it took a lot of time and education to research and truly understand the honey and other products like Mutiara figs, which grow in the rainforest. “It took a lot of (investment) to find the right farms and then deal with local farmers who can provide a product that is consistent and of the required quality,” he says.
Any bartender or industry leader who comes to the bar to do a master class or a guest bartending shift is also asked to bring in local honey from their country or region. “We ask them to bring a unique honey from their country to help expand on the story and give us more of an immersive experience,” Sharma says. “We’re continually working on this project, which will continue to develop and has unlimited opportunities.”
2. Cavalier Hotel: Virginia Beach, Virginia
Tours at the Cavalier Hotel’s in-house distillery, Tarnished Truth, not only top the list of things to do in Virginia Beach on Trip Advisor, but it’s become a branding point for the entire hotel. While the tours draw in repeat business for vacationers and corporate, both hotel General Manager Brad Chance and distillery owner Andrew Yancey are even more excited about their new Presidential Bourbon Club experience.
“Someone gets to create their own recipe of bourbon, they help make the mash, distill it and put it in a barrel,” Yancey says. “Then, they get to come back once a year to check on their barrel, and when they think their bourbon is ready – three years, five years or eight years — we will bottle it and hold a bottle release party for them and 18 of their friends.”
The new program, which debuts in March with a US$25,000 price tag, already has people signed up. With those bragging rights, “it’s conversational currency,” Chance says. The hotel also offers monthly distillery?dinners, which sell out quickly, and several corporate clients are bringing in their customers and employees for private dinners, tours and events.
Both Chance and Yancey say building a distillery into a hotel was not a small endeavor (the hotel renovation, completed in April 2018, initially estimated at US$37 million, ended up being US$87 million), and the permitting process for the distillery took 26 months. “Sixty to seventy percent of my job is just filling out paperwork for the federal government,” Yancey says.
3. Emirates One&Only Wolgan: Valley resort, Australia
The resort staff worked with Mikey Enright, owner of The Barber Shop gin bar in Sydney, and Ian Glen of Stone Pine Distillery, to create the 1832 Wolgan gin, made from purified water from Carne Creek and botanicals, both found on the property. “Throughout 2018, Mikey and Ian visited the resort numerous times to explore the property, forage for and select botanicals and sample the pristine water that has been used to distill the gin,” says James Wyndham, general manager.
The gin itself has been a hit with guests who also experience the drink through master classes and tastings. As well, they can pick and touch botanicals used in the gin through guided nature walks.
The idea for the gin – and the tours and tastings – came about in 2017 when the resort partnered with Enright on a one-time gin master class, a martini hour and gin degustation dinner that was part of a pop-up Barber Shop bar at the resort. “The feedback from guests has been fabulous,” Wyndham says. “The signature cocktail with the gin has been hugely popular, and we have seen many sales (of limited bottles) of the gin.”
4. St. Regis Deer Valley Hotel: Park City, Utah
The St. Regis Deer Valley Hotel worked with local Alpine Distilling to create a private-label gin for the hotel, and now, the hotel brings in the distillery’s owners to teach aroma experiences to guests – and transports guests to the distillery to make their own gins.
“I’m always looking for local partners as a way to tell the story of our destination, Park City, to our guests,” says Brandon Hendricks, director of sales and marketing for the hotel. Hendricks met Rob and Sara Sergent, owners of the distillery, and the three of them came up with the idea for the private-label gin, which can only be found at the hotel.
Sara Sergent says that many members of the hotel’s F&B team were involved in the making of the gin. “They got to move barrels, to touch every part of the production,” Sergent says. “So when a guest asks them about the gin, they’re invested in it.”
The aroma experience evolved out of the gin. “It’s put together as an interactive game that can be both fun and competitive as each guest gets to smell a scent and then tries to guess what it is,” Hendricks says. “The most amazing thing about it is that it’s educational, fun,engaging, and once you activate your senses through smell, you can literally pick out those flavors when you try different gins. We use it to elevate our cocktail experience for our guests.”
5. Gran Velas: Riviera Maya Resort, Mexico
The all-inclusive Gran Velas Riviera Maya resort has been doing tequila and mezcal tastings, as well as “over the top” getaways to Mexico wine country and private plane jaunts to Tequila for guests who want a more in-depth beverage experience, but the resort’s latest offering hearkens back to Mexico’s history of distilled beverages.
The new “Ancestral Drink Tasting” launched officially in December and is included in the resort’s nightly rate. “We had been thinking of doing this for some time, then the ultimate catalyst was our decision to have a food festival at our Frida restaurant highlighting the best of Mexico,” says Eduardo Quiroga, resort sommelier. “We wanted the festival to reflect not just current food and beverage trends, but also Mexico’s rich culinary and cultural traditions in both food and beverage.”
That led to Quiroga and his team researching – and then collecting – unusual distilled spirits that have a long history in Mexico, including bacanora, a 300-year-old agave spirit; sotol, which distils an asparagus-type plant that needs 15 years of growth before it can be harvested; tuxca, a type of mezcal that distills 20 different types of agave into one spirit; and pox, fermented in oak from wheat, sugar cane and brown sugar.
“More than a commitment of time was a commitment of life experience in our large food and beverage team” to create cocktails and infusions for the spirits, Quiroga says. “Some of the drinks and spirits are expensive and very scarce, so this can definitely involve a not-insubstantial investment.”
The experiences give added value to the resort since they’re included in the resort rate, and they also create memories for guests. “The experiences are also a source of valuable media coverage that we’ve seen affect the bottom line,” Quiroga says.
Contributed by Jeanette Hurt