Four Seasons Mixologists Get in the Spirit with Aged Cocktails

We all know that wine ages in barrels, but how about cocktails? This new trend, turning up on drink menus everywhere, allows the cocktail ingredients to mature and mingle with each other, resulting in a richer and more layered flavor. Here’s how Four Seasons mixologists are shaking up their repertoire.

Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole: The mixologists at the resort’s watering hole, The Handle Bar, celebrated National Heritage Bourbon Month with—what else?—hearty, bourbon-based recipes, all of which have been aged in 5-liter barrels. From an old school barrel-aged Manhattan to a barrel-aged Fancy Free, the cocktails proved popular enough to stay on the menu.

Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis: Though barrel aging is fairly new to the hotel, guests are lining up to participate in Cielo Restaurant & Bar’s cocktail crush. It’s a foolproof ordering system for imbibers not sure which barrel-aged flavors they prefer. The bartender provides guests with a vintage cocktail glass they can use to sample several options before filling their glass with their preferred “poison.”

Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta: Mixologists at Park 75 have teamed up with a local producer of rum to redefine a long-time favorite. Called the Richland Rum and Coke, this drink is made from rum aged in virgin American oak barrels and topped off with the hotel’s own house-made cola, which has notes of fresh citrus zest, dried lavender, and star anise.

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Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver: To launch the new look of YEW seafood + bar, the talents behind the bar have stirred up the usual offerings in favor of a whole new cocktail menu, including a section dedicated to the barrels.

Four Seasons Hotel Sydney: The down-under hotel keeps things fresh with its barrel-aged cocktail of the month. Resident mixologists create the recipe and place all the ingredients in a barrel for at least six weeks, so the flavors meld and mellow in a new way.

Four Seasons Hotel Chicago: This hotel’s Allium Bar, just steps from the Magnificent Mile, has a secret ingredient to put its barrel-aged Manhattan over the top. Orange peels sit in the mixture for a full day before a pastry chef candies them, and then these ribbons are used as garnish.

Four Seasons Hotel Austin: The team at the hotel’s lobby lounge is having barrels of fun with this Texas-sized trend—and guests have to be in the know to take part. Because of limited quantities, the barrel-aged cocktails won’t appear on the menu. So, guests just have to ask their server about the latest batch. If guests are lucky, they may get to try a barrel-aged Manhattan or barrel-aged Blood & Sand.

Four Seasons Hotel New York: It’s not just the new Art Deco-inspired TY Bar that’s got people buzzing in the Big Apple. It’s also the bar’s menu, made from fresh local ingredients. The key ingredient in many of these ’20s and ’30s-era drinks is a custom barrel bourbon, made exclusively for TY Bar by Hudson Bourbon.

Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore: Bartenders at Wit & Wisdom, a Tavern by Michael Mina, have taken their craft to a new dimension through the inclusion of solera-aged barreled cocktails, a fractional blending process where the finished concoction is a blend of all the liquors’ ages. The result is a list of unique drinks such as the Widow’s Kiss (Clear Creek apple brandy, yellow Chartreuse, and Benedictine) and Star Dust (gin, orchard apricot brandy, Cocchi vermouth, Pimm’s #1).

Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane: Six—that’s the magic number for the hotel’s signature vermouth blend. Six red vermouths are placed into a barrel with cardamom and vanilla for six months, then extracted for use in a variety of cocktails, such as the special aged Negroni. It’s a slightly different blend for the Amaranto aged Manhattan: six vermouths plus chocolate bitters and Abbott’s bitters. That mix is then combined with walnut, cinnamon, and coffee bean-infused Maker’s Mark. Purists can even enjoy the six-vermouth blend on its own as an aperitif.

Regent Singapore, A Four Seasons Hotel: Guests can learn to mix up classic cocktail and bottle aged variations straight from the barrel in an exclusive experience at Manhattan, Regent Singapore’s grand hotel bar. It has its own rickhouse, where whiskies are finished and cocktails are aged in custom American oak barrels to create complex flavors.

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