Alia Akkam - Behind the Bar: 50 Cocktail Recipes from the Worlds Most Iconic Hotels

GET TO KNOW STAND-OUT HOTEL BARS FROM AROUND THE WORLD, AND THEIR RECIPES FOR LIBATIONS THAT YOU CAN WHIP UP AT YOUR HOME BAR WITH EASE.

KOLLZS, the restaurant inside the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest, has its own entrance, but when I visit I prefer to reach it through the lobby. This way I can look up at the restored glass cupola overhead and the mosaic tiles at my feet, savouring a taste of what the building was like when it first opened at the beginning of the 20th century. I make my way past the waiters, scuttling across the floor with plates of the signature octopus, scallop and sausage atop a bed of paprika potatoes, to the circular bar dominating one side of the dining room. I sit down as I often do alone, yet surrounded by strangers.

There is banter with the bartenders, eventually leading to a beautiful cocktail set before me, and then, as my thoughts drift, I find calm in the anonymity. None of the people around me know who I am. Here, I can really be anyone the person I want them to think I am, the person I might still become.

Certainly, I find comfort in a no-frills neighbourhood bar, too watching the same locals order the same too-chilled glasses of white wine from the same surly barman but I know I am not the only one who relishes the hotel bar for the enigmatic aura it conjures, for its power to instil in you the child-like belief in kismet you thought was long gone. Spending the night in a swank hotel room is a fleeting, glamorous experience and the hotel bar, heightened by the knowledge that there is an endless parade of guests slipping in and out of the sumptuous king-size beds above, is just as seductive a setting; the stream of possibilities just as infinite. That is why I wrote this book: to celebrate 50 of the worlds finest hotel bars some of which you might never have heard of and their distinctive and colourful legacies.

In the 1920s, when some American bartenders fled to Europe in the wake of Prohibition, hotel bars were hotspots, places where celebrities and the well-heeled convened. Much of that magic still clings to certain properties and is cleverly reinterpreted at others. To understand the pull of the hotel bar, however, one must understand the evolution of the hotel.

Bill Kimpton opened the Clarion Bedford Hotel in San Francisco in 1981 (the first location of his soon-to-thrive Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, known for its gratis Wine Hour receptions, animal-print bathrobes, and friendly, informal service in every location) and the era of the boutique hotel was unofficially born. Three years later, Ian Schrager and his late business partner Steve Rubell, the genius New York club kings behind Studio 54 and later The Palladium, elevated the model on the East Coast and unveiled the see-and-be-seen-at Morgans New York. At this minimalist Andre-Putman-designed hotel, the lobby was no longer a utilitarian check-in point, but a sizzling social hub. A similar velvet rope kind of flash (coincidentally the velvet rope, that ubiquitous form of crowd control, was brought to new heights at Studio 54 in the late 70s to ward off the riffraff) engulfed the avant-garde Royalton, Schrager and Rubells next New York hotel (the first designed by the madcap Philippe Starck) in 1988. Three years later still, Gerber Group debuted The Whiskey bar at Schragers Paramount Hotel and the perception of hotels as sources of electrifying nightlife was sealed.

Other milestones include the first of Chip Conleys Joie de Vivre hotels, which premiered in San Francisco (the brand is no longer Conleys; its now part of the Hyatt portfolio); Andr Balazs readied Chateau Marmont for the scandalous Hollywood set; and Claus Sendlinger, keen to give small, good-looking hotels a voice, co-founded Design Hotels in 1993. W Hotels and Standard Hotels both arrived on the scene in 1998, giving young party people even more chances to romp around in style. A year later, the first Ace Hotel a magnet for the on-a-budget creative class was spawned from a one-time Seattle halfway house. All of these brands exhibited a different ethos, but their commitment to unconventionality was the common thread, proving that hotels could be memorable, not mundane. They placed a premium on design and, through their bars, they mesmerised the local community as much as the short-lived nomads. No longer did a hotel bar seem out-of-touch the domain of the bejewelled affluent nor did it remain the dingy domain of the business traveller who came around for perfunctory pours of bourbon.

The rise of the boutique hotel coincided with a universal shift in cocktails, from the morass of artificially flavoured mixers, soda guns and too-sweet drinks that were par for the course in the 1970s and 80s, to the made-from-scratch mindset that is fortunately abundant today.

As so much of the soulful past gives way to the slick and the bland, its an important time to honour the bars that have survived the ages, the ones chock-full of character even if their drinks arent the most ravishing, and the stirring modern classics that may not have a long heritage bolstering their names, but flaunt quality in spades.

STAND OUT

Hotels
from the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific

ACCOMPANIED BY

Cocktail recipes
directly from their bars

THE INS AND OUTS OF THE BOOK

On these pages, you will get to know stand-out hotels from the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific accompanied by recipes directly from their bars. Some are straightforward, some are more time-consuming and complex, but with a little patience you should be able to track down most ingredients.

Although I mention how a bar specifically makes the drinks, I also note when theyve been adapted in this book for the readers ease. Likewise, many of the establishments call for the use of a particular brand in their creations. I have pointed these out to honour the bars recipes and the bartenders preference for a product but if you cant track down a bottle that isnt widely available, dont fret; you can swap in, say, another whisky as you see fit.

In the book you will constantly see simple syrup listed as an ingredient. Its a breeze to whip this up at home, and the same version can be applied to any cocktail that asks for it. A building block to numerous drinks, its essentially sugar water, melding one part sugar with one part water (if this standard measurement varies, its noted in the respective recipes). To achieve this convenient 1:1 ratio, simply combine a cup of water with a cup of granulated sugar in a saucepan. Bring them to a boil and stir together until dissolved over a medium heat, then measure out the amount noted in the recipe. After making a round of cocktails, store the remainder of the syrup in a glass jar for up to two weeks in the refrigerator until the next batch beckons.

Armed with a basic bar tool kit shaker, strainer, jigger, bar spoon, muddler, ice tongs you should be well on your way to hosting a boozy dinner party.