by Alia Akkam
Hotel Il Pellicano, Porto Ercole, Italy: Italy comes alive – and teems with tourists – in the summertime. Pay no mind to the hordes at Il Pellicano, a countryside hide-out on the Tuscan coast between Rome and Pisa (in 1965 a couple stole away here for secretive trysts before it became a hotel). Leave your own bougainvillea-drenched terrace for the one at Bar All’Aperto, where the sea views are accompanied by a Martini tinged with Campania-made mandarinetto liqueur.
Hotel du Cap–Eden-Roc, Antibes, France: A French Riviera legend since its inception as a villa for intellectuals in 1870, Hotel du Cap–Eden-Rock has seen its fair share of royalty and celebrities, including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Rita Hayworth and Pablo Picasso. With an infinity pool carved into the rocks and secluded cabanas, it continues to provide recreational bliss to the posh guests. One of their favourite spots to feast on the Mediterranean Sea is on the curving terrace of Eden-Roc Bar, a ‘Fancy Fizz’ (Bombay Sapphire gin, ginger beer, lemon juice, agave syrup and lemongrass) by their side.
No. 32
Not For Everybody
LE CHURCHILL AT LA MAMOUNIA, MARRAKECH, MOROCCO
INGREDIENTS
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) Basil-Infused Gin*
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) Strawberry Shrub**
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) freshly pressed strawberry juice
3 drops of rosemary bitters
fresh rosemary sprig, to garnish
* For the Basil-Infused Gin (makes 700 ml/24 fl oz):
700 ml (24 fl oz) Beefeater 24 gin
50 g (2 oz) fresh basil leaves
** For the Strawberry Shrub (makes 1 litre/34 fl oz):
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) Demerara sugar
500 ml (17 fl oz) red wine vinegar
METHOD
For the Basil-Infused Gin, combine the gin and basil in a non-reactive container, then store in a dry, dark place for 14 days. Strain the gin into a sterilised, airtight container and refrigerate for up to 2 months.
For the Strawberry Shrub, combine the strawberries and sugar in a container, cover and refrigerate for 72 hours. Combine the mixture in a saucepan and cook on a low temperature until it has reduced by a fifth. Let cool, then add the vinegar. Strain it into a sterilised container and refrigerate for up to 2 months.
To make the cocktail, combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into glass filled with ice and garnish with a rosemary sprig.
The Man Who Knew Too Much, the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock thriller starring a ‘Que Sera, Sera’-singing Doris Day, centres on a family unwittingly swept up in an assassination plot while on holiday in Morocco. Fans of La Mamounia will instantly recognise the majestic hotel’s light red ochre façade on screen, for it is as deeply entrenched in Marrakech culture as the nearby medina’s dusty streets. La Mamounia, a medley of traditional Moroccan architecture and Art-Deco pizzazz, opened in 1923, on the 18th-century grounds that Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah gifted to his son Mamoun. It was adored by the celebrity set, but the guest who might have loved the La Mamounia best was Winston Churchill. He first fell for La Mamounia and Marrakech, the city he dubbed the ‘Paris of the Sahara’, on a painting holiday in the 1930s. Every winter he kept returning. Much of La Mamounia has changed since the statesman marvelled at the shifting light of the Atlas Mountains, but not those expansive gardens with the striking slew of olive trees and rose bushes. Wander through them, and then sit in dark, jazzy Le Churchill for another fleeting nip of days gone by.
No. 33
Sarova Stanley Spinner
EXCHANGE BAR AT SAROVA STANLEY, NAIROBI, KENYA
INGREDIENTS
30 ml (1 fl oz) Martini extra dry vermouth
30 ml (1 fl oz) Campari
30 ml (1 fl oz) gin
30 ml (1 fl oz) Cointreau
pared orange zest, to garnish
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake. Strain into a Martini glass over a large ice cube and garnish with the orange zest.
Nairobi’s evolution from ramshackle swamp territory to African metropolis was propelled by construction of the railway, kicking off in 1896 in the then Kenyan capital of Mombasa. By 1902, Nairobi had gradually developed and so Mayence Bent began operating a boarding house for railway employees, feeding guests with produce from her husband’s farm. When the Great Fire of Victoria Street destroyed the building, the undeterred Bent moved to a new location and opened the two-story Stanley, the city’s first hotel, where one could ooh and ahh at Mount Kilimanjaro from the veranda. Now part of Kenya’s Sarova Hotels & Resorts, the Stanley does an impressive job of remembering the past – one marked by visits from Frank Sinatra, then-Princess Elizabeth and Ernest Hemingway – by keeping such elements as the black-and-white floor in the lobby up to snuff. Awash with red leather and mahogany, the Exchange Bar, then called Long Bar, is the former headquarters of Nairobi’s first stock exchange, founded in 1954. Under the woven palm fans suspended from the ceiling, now it’s loads of business travellers who converse over rum coladas and banana daiquiris.
The traditional three-equal-parts approach to a Negroni is vivified by the presence of Cointreau in this cocktail, leading to flavours reminiscent of an Aperol Spritz – sans the bubbles.
SPOTLIGHT:
SAFARI
for the love of nature’s happy hour
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
At Royal Chundu Island Lodge, in Katambora, Zambia, guests spend their days on a boat safari, floating across the Zambezi River and scoping out elephants, hippos, waterbuck and crocodiles. They also make time for excursions to Victoria Falls, walk through baobab trees, go tiger fishing, and wake up early for sunrise cruises. When those activities all come to a rest, when darkness will soon shroud the sky, folks will gather at the River Lodge before dinner takes place around the fire for one last burst of saturated colour. Most of them will be holding a gin and tonic.
African sunsets are a sight to behold every evening, tinting the sky in a collision of deep red and orange hues. The ritual of the sundowner, sipping while marvelling at the sun dipping and vanishing, can be traced back to 19th-century Africa, when British officers, exhausted from a long day in the bush, would revive with a cooling, dusk-time nip of gin. Since those colonial days, the quenching pastime has evolved. The drink is largely a gin and tonic now, and it’s an essential component of any African holiday, particularly contemplative safaris.
Safari accommodations are not like typical hotels, and their bars are small and well-edited; these are not the places to try new-fangled mezcal drinks with homemade tinctures. Most drinks served here are straightforward and satisfying, woven into all-inclusive packages. Some of them, like the camps and lodges operated by the sustainable-minded Singita in South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Rwanda, have field guides who are ready to ply guests with gin and tonics from the fully stashed cooler boxes on their vehicles. In Africa, there isn’t a dramatic interior to look forward to come happy hour, but the landscape. Even the most brilliant of designers cannot compete with quaffing a cocktail as a giraffe streaks by.
Guests at Singita Kwitonda Lodge, at the edge of Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, can unwind with a chilled whisky in their private heated plunge pool after a dusty gorilla trek, just as at Royal Malewane, in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park, tented, lantern-lit bush dinners are preceded by an alfresco sampling of the hotel’s massive whisky collection.
The sundowner, then, is a colossal yet simple reminder that travelling is an unparallelled opportunity to celebrate, and deepen a connection with, Mother Nature.
No. 34
Passion Fruit Gin Cocktail
THE TRAVELLERS BAR AT THE ROYAL LIVINGSTONE VICTORIA FALLS ZAMBIA HOTEL BY ANANTARA, LIVINGSTONE, ZAMBIA
INGREDIENTS
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) dry gin (the bar uses Mundambi, specially made for the hotel by South Africa’s New Harbour Distillery)
&
nbsp; 25 ml (¾ fl oz) triple sec
2¼ teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
5 ml (1 teaspoon) passion fruit purée
2 drops of Angostura bitters
pared lemon zest, to garnish
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients except the bitters in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake well. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice, then add the Angostura bitters and garnish with lemon zest.
In the mid-19th century, David Livingstone, the Scottish physician, missionary and explorer of southern and central Africa, was apparently the first European to come across a waterfall on the Zambezi River, at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was called Mosi-oa-Tunya (‘The Smoke That Thunders’) in the local Lozi language, but Livingstone, ever the loyal Brit, decided to name it for Queen Victoria. Considered the largest waterfall in the world, Victoria Falls is certainly a marvellous sight. Imagine, then, waking up to a whirring ceiling fan in your creamy, Colonial-style suite, breakfasting on the veranda, and then trotting over to this cascading spectacle in just five minutes. At the resort, located within Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, it always appears as if you are on safari. Wildlife freely roams the grounds, so it’s perfectly plausible that you’ll be gobsmacked by a moseying zebra as you finish the remains of a cappuccino. Before a dinner aboard the old-timey locomotive that chugs its way through the Zambezi River Valley, partake of a gin sundowner in The Travellers Bar. Throbbing with guests on stitched leather chairs, it has live piano music that will woo you into returning for a cheeky bedtime send-off.
No. 35
Rose Ginvino
THE WILLASTON BAR AT THE SILO HOTEL, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
INGREDIENTS
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) South African Musgrave rose gin
25 ml (¾ fl oz) Marras chenin blanc
25 ml (¾ fl oz) freshly squeezed lime juice
25 ml (¾ fl oz) freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) rose syrup
1 egg white
rose petals, to garnish
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker, adding the egg white last, then top up with ice and shake well. Strain into a Martini glass and garnish with rose petals.
Powerfully intertwining the past and present on Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront is Zeitz MOCAA. A trove of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, it was fashioned out of a derelict 1924 grain-silo complex by London’s Heatherwick Studio, and was the tallest building in sub-Saharan Africa at one point. Directly above the museum, in the former elevator tower, is The Silo Hotel. Opened in 2017, featuring a private art gallery and panoramic rooftop pool, it is a commanding presence, with ‘pillow’ windows that soften the well-preserved concrete exterior. Inside, the industrial tone gives way to exuberance, the crystal chandelier-speckled guest rooms a profusion of colour – behold the baths with a view and those glimmering black-and-white striped floors. Named for the first ship to export grain to Europe, the sixth-floor Willaston Bar is just as vivid. Park yourself on a teal bar stool or one of the deep blue-green semi-circular banquettes and request an ‘Iceplant Negroni’ with Turkish fig-infused Bombay Sapphire gin and Aperol. Through those bubbles of bloated glass, you’ll be nothing short of transfixed by the appearance of Table Mountain and the harbour.
No. 36
Aberfeldy Fashion
THE CLUB BAR AND CIGAR LOUNGE AT THE OBEROI, NEW DELHI, INDIA
INGREDIENTS
50 ml (1¾ fl oz) Aberfeldy 28-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch
1 teaspoon maple syrup
2 dashes of Homemade Bitters* or Angostura orange bitters
*For the Homemade Bitters (makes 250 ml/8½ fl oz):
5 g (6–7) star anise
5 g (1 tablespoon) cloves
5 g (2½ teaspoons) fennel seeds
5 g (2 teaspoons) cracked Szechuan peppercorns
3 x 2⅓ in (10 g/½ oz) Ceylon cinnamon sticks
250 ml (8½ fl oz) vodka
METHOD
For the Homemade Bitters, put all the spices in a jar and add the vodka. Let sit in a dark place for 3 hours, stirring the mixture every hour. Strain into a sterilised jar or bottle. The bitters will keep for years.
To make the cocktail, combine all the ingredients in a mixing glass and stir well. Serve in an old fashioned glass over a sphere of ice.
A less resilient entrepreneur might have thrown in the towel if the opening of his hotel coincided with the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, but M.S. Oberoi, who acquired the Grand Hotel in Calcutta just before World War II broke out, persevered yet again in the face of tumult. Good thing, too, because The Oberoi, New Delhi – the flagship of the Indian luxury hotel brand he launched in 1934 – was the country’s first large, modern, service-oriented property, even hiring, in an unprecedented move, female housekeeping staff. When designer Adam D. Tihany overhauled the hotel in 2018, a property where Omar Sharif, Mick Jagger and countless Bollywood stars all passed through, he was careful to respect that heritage. It looks lighter and fresher, but most importantly the jali screen in the lobby that guides people through the window-lined marble corridor, and the furnishings that summon English architect Edwin Lutyens, who masterminded the design of numerous New Delhi landmarks, are all tasteful updates. The Club Bar and Cigar Lounge, where you’ll overhear orders for a Negroni or Cognac Alexander, is a library-like room tinted in red and maroon. With punches of brass and hand-knotted rugs underfoot, it’s evident that a new chapter has begun.
To make the most out of the Aberfeldy Fashion, do as the patrons of the Club Bar and Cigar Lounge do and sip this one leisurely between puffs of a woody, spice-tinged Cohiba Robusto.
No. 37
My Heart Beets For You
SIP AT W MALDIVES, FESDU ISLAND, MALDIVES
INGREDIENTS
1 teaspoon patchouli oil
45 ml (1½ fl oz) gin
30 ml (1 fl oz) fresh beetroot (beet) juice
25 ml (¾ fl oz) lemon and yuzu juice (the bar uses fresh yuzu, but lime is a good substitute)
15 ml (½ fl oz) Ginger Syrup*
1 fresh oyster, to serve
*For the Ginger Syrup (makes 500 ml/17 fl oz):
500 ml (17 fl oz) freshly pressed ginger juice
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
METHOD
For the Ginger Syrup, combine the ginger juice and sugar in a container and let sit for 6 hours. Fine strain. The syrup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 months.
Shake the patchouli oil with ice for about 10 seconds, then fine strain into a glass. Combine all the remaining liquids in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake. Double strain the into an old fashioned glass. Serve with a fresh oyster on the side.
The music- and fashion-forward W Hotels brand took a serene turn when W Maldives opened on the private island of Fesdu in North Ari Atoll in 2006. Reached via speedboat, the resort is defined by a network of wooden jettys leading to thatched-roof villas with plunge pools, most of them poised over water with circular windows that look onto lagoon fauna. The aqueous landscape, stitched together with white-sand beaches, turquoise lagoons and reefs, means that days are peppered with snorkelling, as well as diving and fishing adventures. Unwinding between activities is also a priority here – a task that’s easy to accomplish given the bungalows’ swings, circular daybeds and sun-deck loungers. Even baths are taken enveloped in fresh air. At dusk, curled up on an alfresco couch with a lychee cocktail, it’s the bar SIP that ensures this state of relaxation continues. In keeping with the W Hotels’ this-could-be-a-nightclub mentality, you’ll find an energising DJ on hand, but the main attraction is seeing the sun set in a blaze of colour over the Indian Ocean, a poignant pause before a barbecue repast around the fire pit.
Mayhem is rampant in Asia, yet there is a certain poetry to all those whizzing motorbikes and tuk-tuks manoeuvring their way through the automobiles inevitably at a standstill. The energy here is, at turns, bewildering, daunting and
elating, and a hotel bar is a reassuring asylum after a day on the chaotic streets. Rooftop lairs, particularly popular in Australia and Bangkok, where places such as The Speakeasy at Hotel Muse are as essential to travel itineraries as a Wat Pho temple tour, have the secondary advantage of bird’s-eye views over the city below. Cocktail menus in this corner of the world might increasingly mirror those glittering high-rises puncturing the crowded skylines with their out-there drinks, but there is a certain timeless civility that courses through Asian hotel bars. Captain’s Bar opened at the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, in 1963, and checkered glass partitions still delineate its booths, just as countless silver tankards of beer are still placed before wide-eyed guests. It is proof that tradition can peacefully co-exist with modernity.
No. 38
Lost in Translation (L.I.T.)
NEW YORK BAR AT PARK HYATT TOKYO, JAPAN
INGREDIENTS
40 ml (1¼ fl oz) Japanese sake
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) peach liqueur
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) Sakura liqueur
20 ml (⅔ fl oz) cranberry juice
10 ml (⅓ fl oz) freshly squeezed lime juice
METHOD
Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake. Strain into a Martini glass.
Park Hyatt Tokyo might forever be enmeshed with Sofia Coppola’s Academy-Award-winning 2003 film, Lost In Translation. Even if Bill Murray’s Bob and Scarlett Johansson’s Charlotte hadn’t befriended each other here, high above neon-hued Shinjuku, the hotel would still exhilarate.
Encompassing the upper portion of a three-block skyscraper – one of the city’s tallest – Park Hyatt Tokyo opened in 1994, designed by the late Kenzō Tange. Clean, calming lines abound in the guest rooms and a snow-capped Mount Fuji in the distance is companion to swims in one of the world’s most good-looking pools.
