When a Hotel Bar Becomes a Cocktail Destination

Bringing that old drink back

So what is it that’s leading the shift back toward excellent hotel bar and beverage offerings? Guests, of course—guests who are increasingly educated, well-traveled, and quite spirit savvy. “Staying in a hotel should be a great experience, and having a great bar that makes great cocktails—as opposed to just a bar where you can get a drink—is part of the experience,” says Chef Ken Frank, owner of La Toque restaurant in The Westin Verasa Napa in Northern California.

That’s why properties of all sizes—from quaint B&Bs and boutique hotels to 1,000-room concepts by major players like Marriott and Hyatt—are elevating their beverage offerings to match, or even surpass, local establishments.

“We have to have the credibility to match the food; we have to have a stronger beverage game because it’s a total experience. Today’s consumer is looking for both,” says Greg Griffie, senior vice president of food and beverage for Davidson Hotels & Resorts, which has more than 45 worldwide properties in its portfolio. “They want to start with great cocktails that lead into fantastic wines, coupled with a great service and food experience.”

Many of Davidson’s standout beverage outlets are cocktail-forward, partially because Griffie says cocktails run a better profit margin than wines by the glass. “We’re developing cocktails that are well-balanced, with half that are recognizable and half that are more modern, cutting-edge, and experimental,” he adds. “We want to sell consumers cocktails, but we want that cocktail to lead to wine sales as they pair wine with their dinners. That’s where we really see the business interest come to play, and not just the experiential piece.”

Craft cocktails are also the highlight at Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and The Westin Hapuna Beach Resort, sister concepts in Hawaii with eight food-and-beverage outlets between them. Beachside restaurant Hau Tree specializes in mai tais with a twist—a frozen concoction made with pineapple-infused coconut rum—as well as a signature cocktail called the Fredrico, featuring Bacardi, Jack Daniel’s, and pineapple and guava juices.

“They actually outsell mai tais, which in Hawaii is pretty tough to do,” says Todd Oldham, director of food and beverage of the two properties. “It’s become one of the things you have to do when you come here.”

Another of Mauna Kea’s concepts, Copper Bar, serves the Mauna Kea Barrel Bonfire, made with an exclusive single-barrel rye bourbon from Knob Creek, along with pineapple, a touch of honey from on-property hives, and a smoky finish thanks to burnt kiawe wood. “If you look at the amount of work and forethought that went into a cocktail like this and the execution—being able to re-create it consistently between five or six bartenders—it’s really impressive,” Oldham says.

Now with a health halo

While it, too, offers a curated list of craft cocktails, luxury wellness resort Miraval Austin is equally invested in what it calls a low-proof/no-proof menu of cocktails without the kick. For guests who do not imbibe, these quality creations allow them to enjoy the social and sensory aspects of drinking, says outlets manager Edward Morgan.

A handful of its nonalcoholic options include the Rosemary Paloma Fizz (which every guest receives upon arrival), made with local rosemary, Texas grapefruit, and rosemary-infused honey simple syrup; the Perfect Thyming, featuring Seedlip Garden 108, thyme simple syrup, lemon and ginger juice, celery bitters, Topo Chico sparkling water, and fresh thyme sprigs; and the Black & Basil, crafted using blackberry shrub, lemon juice, black pepper simple syrup, Topo Chico, and basil leaves.

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“I couldn’t just add more sugars or more carbonation or more citrus to these drinks. I had to find this other component, and that took me more time,” Morgan says. “But I wanted our guests to have that synonym of flavor, and I think we’ve embodied that.”

The resort, which opened in January, is also home to an extensive tea program designed with health-conscious consumers in mind. This includes the Moonlight White, Kenya Chai, and Miraval Yaupon Black Tea. The latter is a special blend made from the native North American plant yaupon, which is mixed with 25 percent gunpowder green tea from China. “They’re getting this double barrel of health benefits—all of these beautiful tried-and-true benefits of green tea with something they didn’t know before,” Morgan says.

Though its spirits game is strong, it’s wine that wins the day at chef Frank’s La Toque. Situated in the heart of Napa Valley, the Michelin Star restaurant is one of only 84 establishments worldwide to receive a Wine Spectator Grand Award.

La Toque presents diners with a nine-course chef’s tasting menu matched with carefully selected wine pairings, giving guests the chance to sample everything from niche Napa varietals to Hungarian reds and rosés from Lebanon. “We like to not only exceed guests’ expectations in general, but also wow them and open their eyes to wine possibilities with food,” says wine director Richard Matuszczak.

A higher buying power

Whatever guests’ drink of choice may be, one thing is certain: Hotel beverage programs, particularly those in larger properties, are a completely different beast than those at stand-alone bars and restaurants. Generally speaking, hotel beverage offerings are much more extensive, as concepts have to accommodate a wider range of tastes for guests visiting from around the world.

Hotels also tend to have deeper pockets, says Russ Blakeborough, owner of hotel and restaurant consulting firm Focus F&B. “Restaurants don’t have $60,000 in wine and liquor budgets, which some hotels [do],” he adds. “Part of it is the ability to have bigger inventories, but the other thing that factors in is corporate purchasing agreements with different vendors that allow more opportunities to get good pricing through buying power.”

Not to mention, being part of a company as massive as Marriott, which owns brands like Westin, Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, and Sheraton, among others, gives F&B directors access to the kind of space and equipment most stand-alone operators can only dream of.

“I don’t know of an independent—at least not in Hawaii—that has its own beehive or a landscaping crew who can bring back kiawe wood,” Oldham says. “Those are the kind of things you can do in a hotel that you can’t do in an independent. You can source it from somebody else, but you don’t have a bartender putting on a beekeeping suit and collecting honey.

Operators like La Toque’s Frank, however, have figured out how to tap into the best of both worlds when it comes to beverage programs. After launching his concept on Sunset Boulevard in 1979, the restaurant relocated to Napa in 1998 before taking up residence in the Westin Verasa Napa 10 years later. Frank’s company, LT Napa Partners, owns and operates the hotel’s entire F&B department, including BANK Café & Bar, in-room dining, catering, and banquets.

“What always struck me is that hotel food and beverage programs are so heavily corporatized and structured that they often take any entrepreneurial spirit and soul out of them,” Frank says. “What we definitely try to do is run this hotel food-and-beverage operation like a restaurant.”

This means Frank and his team do not undergo the same meetings, processes, and purchase-order procedures that a typical hotel restaurant or bar does. They needn’t jump through the many hoops that come with ordering and setting up new vendor relationships and contracts along the supply chain.

“At big hotels, if you want to put something on the menu, you have to find a vendor, get the vendor approved, get the account set up. It might take two weeks, by which time we’ve already moved on and are looking to order something else,” Matuszczak says. “That level of bureaucracy prevents any spontaneity, which is part of any good restaurant’s soul.”

Yet operating independently does come at a cost. As Frank points out, hotel restaurants often break even, but he don’t have that option. As the owner, he must operate within larger margins to pay rent, salaries, and even investors. It’s a more entrepreneurial approach to be sure, but Frank says it’s the best strategy for LT Napa Partners.

Quenching demand

Red tape is just one of the many challenges beverage directors face in a hotel setting. For many years, they were forced to stick to pre-set standards and menus handed down from the corporate team. This might mean that restaurants and bars were required to carry specific brands or secure a percentage of sales from approved-vendor offerings—often with little or no thought given to each concept’s personality or customer base

“There are some brands that still do the, ‘You will serve this, you will use these brands.’ But I think they’re starting to realize that doesn’t do anybody any good,” Oldham says. “If you bring in an amazing chef or mixologist, they don’t want to read someone else’s playbook. They want to do what they want to do.”

Speaking of talent, Oldham says hotels continually struggle to attract and retain quality bartenders and mixologists, many of whom want to work in a different environment with “edgier clientele,” as Oldham puts it. The atmosphere can also be more relaxed at stand-alone concepts where employees can sit at the bar after-hours and chat with their colleagues—a rare occurrence in a hotel setting.

But it isn’t just talent that hotels find difficult to retain; it’s the guests, too. For that reason, some brands are offering beverage classes and educational experiences to keep customers on property and highly engaged throughout their stay. “In the industry, we’re seeing these individuals who are dropping their bags and walking across the street,” Miraval’s Morgan says. “But we want the guests who stay with us to play with us.”

To that end, Miraval Austin offers a number of paid interactive programs for its beverage-curious customers. Dynasty of Tea walks guests through the history, taxonomy, culture, and health benefits of tea; Tenets of Terroir gives them a better understanding of the sense of place each wine has to offer; and Cocktails in the Kitchen teaches them how to build a well-balanced cocktail.

“At the end of the day, that educational component is something they can take with them as this value-added piece to enjoying our offerings. It gives them an opportunity to spend their time doing something worthwhile that they’re interested in,” Morgan says. “So there’s value to them and there’s value to us.”