Airport Experience® News - Customer Service Issue 2024

BEFORE YOU TAKE OFF COCKTAIL GLOBETROTTING Top Global Bartenders Fashion Drinks For PPG At HKG

BY SARAH BELING

Far Left: One featured cocktail is the Oo-Meshu Fizz, created by bartender Diveysh Ramesh from Singapore’s Mandala Club Left: The ANGO cocktail, created by bartender Andrew Ho of Hope & Sesame Guangzhou, is paired with a Sichuan Spicy Chicken Nugget

hospitality of other industry professionals. “The bar community is a tight one, even globally,” says Chow. “Beverage manager Imelda Ng and I were able to reach out to friends from around the world to pull together a fun and diverse group of kindred spirit bartenders with a range of personalities” to feature in the Cocktail Globetrotting program, she adds. Bartenders were asked to feature a drink they were proud of creating, that gives a sense of place to their home bar, adds Chow. After narrowing down a signature drink, Intervals chef Jerry Poon and team took “inspiration from the origin country of the bartender and the popular ingredients found in the corresponding cities” to create food pairings for each menu, says Chow. As for the travel guides, “there is no better person to ask for advice on where to get a late night snack, or find out who the up-and coming chefs and bartenders are” than a bartender, says Chow, adding that while “we give each participant a list of survey questions to put together the travel guide that features along with their cocktail,” the PPG team is also surveying other industry professionals around the world to compile a mega-guide to drinking in style that will be available at the end of the campaign. While there are logistical limitations to expanding the Cocktail Globetrotting program at other PPG lounges due to the extensive preparation and niche, local ingredient requirements, PPG is exploring adaptations to the current campaign. And as for the HKG program? Don’t call “closing time” yet, as Chow puts it, “there are so many more friends and destinations we’d love to feature from around the world.”

W ant to experience what happy hour is like around the world? Thanks to a new “Cocktail Globetrotting” program at Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) from lounge operators Plaza Premium Group , you can now spend a long layover trying signature cocktails from the world’s best bartenders without ever leaving the airport. The program, which runs through March 2025 at HKG’s Intervals bar, will feature a rotating menu of curated cocktails from award-winning global bars paired not only with specialized bites, but with video of the drinks’ creators sharing their culinary inspirations as well as local travel tips from their home cities. Travelers can take home a souvenir, too — PPG has created pocket guides to each city, complete with intel on the local drinking culture and bar recommendations from the area’s hospitality professionals. “Visiting” bartenders include Andrew Ho of Guangzhou’s jazz-unfused speakeasy Hope & Sesame; Minakshi Singh of Delhi’s artisanal cocktail bar Sidecar; Diveysh Ramesh of Singapore’s exclusive Mandala

Club; Alvaro Garcia and Tito Pin-Perez of Mexico City’s cocktail bar Rayo; Holly Graham and Waka Murata of the stylish Tokyo Confidential bar; Jon Lee of Kuala Lumpur’s critically-acclaimed Penrose bar; Davide Boncimino of Mandarin Oriental Macau’s Vida Rica restaurant and Ronnaporn K. of Bangkok’s Mahaniyom Cocktail Bar. “Bar-hopping is a popular activity among tourists looking to explore a city’s nightlife and culture, with the Cocktail Globetrotting campaign, you don’t necessarily have to travel all the way to specific cities to visit their renowned bars. We bring their famous cocktails to you,” says Mei Mei Song, PPG’s chief transformation officer and the co-creator of Intervals bar. The team at PPG regularly brainstorms ideas for new experiences that can be contained in the airport space, adds Victoria Chow, creative director of intervals, hoping to “inspire individuals to immerse themselves in diverse cultures and destinations, transforming the airport into a meaningful destination rather than just a transport hub.” To put together their “guest shift” program, Chow says that the team relied on the

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AX NEWS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2024