Luxury Hotel Bars Debut Limited Edition Cocktails

In the mood for something…different for an afternoon drink? Around the world, top-tier hotels are offering special limited-edition cocktails and snacks.

For example, at New York's Pierre Hotel along Central Park, Two E Bar/Lounge, the Farmer's Market Cocktail Festival is running through September 24, using locally sourced blueberries, watermelon, fresh pressed apricot juice, basil, thyme and tarragon (not all in one drink, we hope). Mixologists Paul Johnson, Chris Juell and Sachin Hasan selected ingredients from their favorite New York farm stands at local Greenmarkets, including Union Square and Harlem, to develop these inventive drinks.  Speak Low showcases freshly pressed apricot juice from Red Jacket Orchards in Geneva, NY, and the Berry Berry Nice is a tartly mix with blueberries from Breezy Hill Orchards in Staatsburg, NY.

For those more interested in style, the Dorchester Collection has created a limited edition Fashion Prize cocktail menu that recognizes the five designers who have been shortlisted for the 2012 Dorchester Collection Fashion Prize. Blueberries, blackberries and many other colors evoke different fall fashion trends. The cocktail menu will be available during the upcoming fashion season in Europe from September 6 to October 3 at 45 Park Lane in London, Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan, Le Meurice and Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, and Le Richemond in Geneva.
 
In London, The May Fair Bar, at the May Fair (official hotel of Vodafone London Fashion Week) is presenting a collection of cocktails designed exclusively for Fashion Week by LFW designers. Each cocktail is based on the designer’s SS13 (Spring/Summer 2013) collection and inspired by their favorite cocktails, scents and colors. Fashion houses that inspired the Bar's mixologists include Antoni & Alison, Alice by Temperley, Mark Fast, Corrie Nielsen, Olivia Rubin and Holly Fulton. The LFW Designer Cocktail Collection will be available from September 6 – 23 at the May Fair Bar.

And for something a bit on the sweeter side, Dublin has some new tea pastries: The Merrion's Art Tea will soon have three new additions, set to debut this fall, inspired by works of art hung throughout the property's four Georgian townhouses. The new snacks, created by in-house Executive Chef Ed Cooney and Master Pastry Chef Paul Kelly, are artistic interpretations of Pauline Bewick's Path Moorea, Mainie Jellett's Madonna and Child and John Doherty's The Old Fox. Doherty's piece becomes green apple macaroon, matching the color of the painting's garage door; the Tahitian landscape of Path Moorea has been interpreted into a 'Chocolate Trinity' of lime and white chocolate Chantilly, dark chocolate cream and vanilla chocolate cream with two mini chocolate palm trees; and Jellett's Madonna and Child becomes a passion fruit and orange cheesecake, protected by wafer thin white chocolate panels with striped in the same colors.