Dorchester Collection Debuts Signature Cocktails, Mocktails
By Derek Gale, Senior Editor -- Hotels, 3/24/2009 11:00:00 PM
The Dorchester Collection recently announced a new “DC” Signature Cocktail and Mocktail menu available in each of the Collection’s seven hotels.
The carefully crafted cocktails and mocktails are the creations of the Dorchester Collection’s seven bar managers, some of whom have been at their posts for more than 25 years.
The offering is a way of uniting and promoting a group of iconic hotels as one collection, says Anna Glover, director of communications for Dorchester Collection.
“We have all of these very iconic hotels that are well known in their own right, but the brand awareness of the collection is not strong yet, and we wanted to find something that linked all of our hotels together,” she says. “We wanted to create a product, something we could serve to guests.”
The result is a list of specialty beverages that includes offerings like the Martinez (Old Tom Gin and bespoke Bokers bitters), a great-grandfather of the martini, or the Black Mojito (fresh blackberries and blackberry liquor with Blavod vodka, mint and lime juice).
On the mocktail side, there is a White Mojito (a floral concoction blending elderflower, violet and rose) and a Garden of Eden (fresh cucumber and lime juices and organic honey).
So far, both types of beverages are doing well. “The mocktails are really popular,” Glover notes. “Not everybody goes to a bar now and has a drink. Meetings are held in bars, and some people choose not to drink, or are driving. It’s nice to offer them choice rather than just a soft drink or a glass of water.”
Along with the drink menus, the Dorchester Collection also has introduced personalized one-on-one mixology classes with the barmen at most of the hotels, based on guest preferences. The classes give guests the opportunity to learn mixology tips and tricks from the experts as well as to design their own cocktails.
From a marketing standpoint, the collection has launched a dedicated YouTube Channel where anyone can go to recreate the new signature cocktails and mocktails and/or find out more about the group’s barmen and their histories at each hotel’s bar. The various videos also appear on the individual hotels’ Web sites.
This idea grew out of having all of the barmen together in New York for a launch event. “Because we had all the bar managers in one place, it was easy to film,” Glover explains. “We just thought, ‘Let’s do it.’”
The group also focused its recent quarterly e-mail blast around the cocktails and mocktails, and an appearance in the United Kingdom edition of the popular e-newsletter Daily Candy is driving a high level of interest in the mixology class at The Dorchester in London, Glover says.
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