The Way of the World
Hilton Hotels and Tony Abou-Ganim Put Cocktail Culture Into the Mix

What began with modest objectives morphed into a world-class new cocktail program — led by the cult of personality of an expert, celebrity mixologist — that promises to fuel excitement at Hilton and Doubletree properties across the globe.
    The Hilton Family of hotels’ program rolls out this month at owned and managed Hilton and Doubletree hotels.
    It will roll out brand-wide if the prototype is well-received, says Rebecca Walden, senior director, beverage programs and development, working in Hilton’s F&B team led by Meredith Quarnstrom, vice president, food and beverage operation.
    For Hilton locations, the program theme is “Taste. Travel. Toast.” For Doubletree, it is “Exotic Escapes.”

Where the World Is
    “A quick hit where we could create a lot of value in our bars and lounges and create energy and excitement would be in a cocktail hour promotion,” Walden says. “As we dug into it, it turned into something much bigger than we ever expected it to. When you start thinking about how you’re going to implement something and inspire people to adopt it and inspire people to do it well, it starts taking on a life of
its own.”
    Goals from the outset included generating revenue and guest satisfaction, but as the program began to develop, it became important to make sure the properties could implement something that they couldn’t do on their own.
    “It started with Hilton’s objectives,” Walden says. “We’re now a global company, and we weren’t two years ago. Following the Hilton International acquisition, we have these amazing properties all around the world, and we’re at a point where we can start talking about ourselves as a destination and bring a lot of that culture from international properties to the domestic market.
    “We chose cocktails as an area of focus, partly because we feel that’s where the world is right now. There’s a resurgence of the classic cocktails. We decided to have a worldly theme, and from there we got Tony (Abou-Ganim) involved. We’ve had a long-standing relationship with Tony. We have done things with celebrity chefs in the past, and we felt it was time for a celebrity mixologist to have his day.”

The Next Level
    Abou-Ganim, Walden says, was on the same page, understanding exactly the role cocktails should take in invigorating food and beverage sales for the hotels. He also understood the need to balance the competing interests of introducing a higher grade of cocktail while still making the mixology feasible and practical for training Hilton’s many bartenders.
    “He took it to the next level,” Walden says. “We both looked at it as a way to train our bartenders and inspire them. This program was meant to be simple but challenging.
    It’s simple in that there are a lot more complicated cocktails in the world that we don’t have in this program and a lot more ingredients, and we use liquors that are our partners and (properties) will have in stock.
    “It’s challenging in that you have to know how to make cocktails to do it.”
    What resulted is a line of 20 custom-created, hand-crafted cocktails, to be rolled out in two 3-month phases. In addition to Abou-Ganim’s recipes, the award-winning recipes of the Hilton and Doubletree “Top Bar Chefs” — as chosen from an internal mixology competition held recently — will be included in their respective brand promotions. Abou-Ganim selected six semifinalists to compete in a live bar chef competition, including three Hilton and three Doubletree recipes.
    The winning bartenders were Mirjana Kucan from the Hilton Austin for her creation the Hot Summer Night (Absolut, lemon juice, simple syrup and honey muddled with thyme and topped with Sprite) and Nathan Meyer from the Doubletree Hotel Denver for his Thai Mojito Tini (Bacardi, Malibu, Cointreau, lemon and lime wedges and simple syrup muddled with fresh Thai basil sprigs, Thai chili peppers and ginger, topped with Sprite).

Taking Pride
    Walden says Hilton hopes its bartenders will take pride in executing the drinks.
“We supplied (Abou-Ganim) a property list of regions of the world and said, ‘Hey, think about these places and come up with great cocktail ideas.’ He went so much more creative than I even expected.”
    Abou-Ganim became a leader of men and women by training via DVDs distributed to properties. Additionally, the program includes training manuals and regular webinars and group forums.
    “He also really helped us thinking through some of the ways we could get better adoption and implementation at the property level,” Walden says. “I fundamentally don’t believe in mandating programs. I think that if people adopt it and don’t embrace it, they won’t be very supportive.
    This program is optional. One of the biggest things we’ll be checking is the adoption rate. It’s really up to us to come up with a program that anybody in their right mind will want to adopt.”