Although I mention how a bar specifically makes the drinks, I also note when they’ve been adapted in this book for the reader’s 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 bartender’s preference for a product – but if you can’t track down a bottle that isn’t widely available, don’t 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. It’s 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, it’s essentially sugar water, melding one part sugar with one part water (if this standard measurement varies, it’s 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.
Finally, interspersed throughout the book are feature spreads that will give you a deeper understanding of hotel bar culture.
In 1954, bartender Ramón ‘Monchito’ Marrero was credited with creating the holiday-in-a-glass Piña Colada at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The rum libation, with coconut cream, double (heavy) cream, pineapple juice and crushed ice was transporting, and exactly the kind of thrill bar-goers of the past looked forward to having brighten their long-planned vacations. Marrero’s Piña Colada isn’t the only cocktail rumoured to have been invented at a hotel bar, but its simplicity underscores the basic desires of guests and how hotels are well poised to fulfil them.
The cocktail craze that took hold in the States during the 2000s, and naturally spread north to Canada and south to Latin America, has yet to loosen its grip, and the bar stock in this region, including those in hotels, is much better for it. Bartenders use stellar ingredients now, and just like that 1950s Piña Colada did, a perfectly sculpted sphere of ice and piquant homemade syrups are what bring smiles these days. Hotel bars in the Americas may possess a certain razzle-dazzle, but the good ones know it’s only one part of the game.
No. 1
Pisco Sour
BAR INGLÉS AT COUNTRY CLUB LIMA HOTEL, LIMA, PERU
INGREDIENTS
120 ml (4 fl oz) pure Quebranta pisco
30 ml (1 fl oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice
30 ml (1 fl oz) simple syrup
dash of egg white
Angostura bitters, to garnish
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled goblet and add 1–2 drops of Angostura bitters to garnish.
When it opened in 1927, Country Club Lima Hotel resembled a sweeping Spanish colonial mansion – a style that was then very much in vogue among Lima’s high-society circles, despite Peru’s liberation from Spain in the 1820s. Located in the fashionable San Isidro neighbourhood, it was once complete with a circa-1940s polo field and, in its heyday, it lured in luminaries such as Nelson Rockefeller, Ava Gardner and John Wayne, who first met his third wife here. If they hobnobbed, they likely all did so with a Pisco Sour by their side in the wood-panelled Bar Inglés, which calls to mind an English gentlemen’s club.
Years later, Peru’s frothy flagship cocktail remains the go-to drink order, but curious tipplers may want those still-dapper bartenders to pour them another pisco specialty for their second round, such as the refreshing ‘Chilcano’ with ginger ale, or the ‘Chicha Sour’ brightened by Peruvian purple corn.
A Peruvian history lesson isn’t taught solely at the bar but throughout the property. Three hundred pieces of colonial art donated by the Pedro de Osma Museum delineate the country’s vast artistic legacy, along with the murals illuminating Andean textiles that hang over the guest-room beds.
No. 2
Carioca Iced Tea
POOL BAR AT BELMOND COPACABANA PALACE, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
INGREDIENTS
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) cachaça
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) vodka
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) gin
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) simple syrup
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) freshly brewed tea (the bar uses mate, but any chilled, citrus-forward black tea would work)
mint leaves and lemon twist, to garnish
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously for 10 seconds. Strain into a collins or highball glass filled with ice, then garnish with mint leaves and a lemon twist.
Illustrious dancing duo Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were first paired together on screen in Flying Down to Rio, a 1933 musical-comedy-romance that introduced audiences to both the forehead-touching dance craze ‘Carioca’, and the notion of Rio de Janeiro as a cinematic South-American getaway. At the centre of this fantasy is the Copacabana Palace.
Now Belmond Copacabana Palace, the hotel opened in 1923, directly across from its beautiful (soon to be world-famous) namesake beach. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style by French architect Joseph Gire, it attracted jet-setters eager to soak up luxe tropical vibes – Orson Welles, Brigitte Bardot and Mick Jagger all holed up here over the years. And a conversation at the hotel between Barry Manilow and lyricist Bruce Sussman supposedly sparked their 1978 hit song ‘Copacabana’. The domed Golden Room, where Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole once performed, is now a private events venue, but the spectacular swimming pool is still cloaked in Old World glamour. At
