Tales of the Cocktail Preview: Classic Hotel Bars

I am writing up several previews of seminars for the Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans. This write-up is about the seminar called Classic Hotel Bars, lead by a couple of gin ambassadors.

Before Prohibition, cocktails were largely an American thing, though "American bars" were beginning to pop up around Europe. By calling them American bars, this typically meant that they served cocktails, and that those cocktails had ice in them; not common in many countries at the time.

Then Prohibition hit and many career bartenders fled the country to take up their profession elsewhere. They wound up in Cuba and all over Europe, helping to spread  this quirky little culinary movement internationally.

Today many of those hotel bars are still in existence, while new ones join them all the time. We'll learn about these classic and modern hotel bars from Simon and Dan, but should you want to read more about the hotel bars that Camper English has visited, follow the links below.

• The Savoy, London
• The Artesian, London
• Don't bother with the Singapore Sling at the Raffles
• Clock Bar, San Francisco
• A couple of hotel bars in Dublin
• The brand new Ohla Hotel in Barcelona

And finally, for an oldie but a goodie, check out this Hotel Wine MacGuyver post, which is a situation when you decide to drink in your room instead of the bar, but don't have a corkscrew.

Session Details:

Classic Hotel Bars
Time: 10 AM to 11:30 AM
Date: Friday the 22nd of July, 2011
Venue: The Queen Anne Ballroom, Hotel Monteleone
Moderators: Simon Ford
Panelists: Dan Warner

When Prohibition hit the USA professional bartenders fled the Country and took there skills to the finest luxury establishments around the World. These were mostly hotels and today some of the greatest bars in the World are hotel bars. This seminar will explore the great bartenders, bars and cocktail creations that came from these places and regal stories from some of the greatest bartenders in the World old & new. Harry Johnson, Harry Craddock, Hugo Enslin, Eddie Wolke and Jerry Thomas all worked in hotels and thats just the beginnings because today some of the greatest bartenders around are at hotels such as The Savoy & The Connaught in London, The Ritz in Paris, The Royalton in NYC, and so on.