The whiskey arrives before the guest even unpacks, and at Titanic Hotel Belfast, a sample of Titanic Distillers’ Irish whiskey and artisan truffles wait in rooms styled with ships’ lanterns, Art Deco furnishings and maritime artwork evoking the golden age of ocean travel. Down the road, in the former Pumphouse where RMS Titanic once stood for fitting out, that whiskey was distilled in the first working distillery Belfast has seen in almost 90 years. It isn’t a chocolate on the pillow but a story that only exists inside that one hotel, and hotels everywhere have started chasing the same idea.
That kind of detail isn’t unique to Belfast anymore. Luxury hotels are deciding that the amenities guests already expect, like the robe, the turndown chocolate and the champagne on ice, aren’t enough to set a stay apart. Some are partnering with local distillers down the road, while others are building barrel rooms into a wing of the hotel itself. Some are flying to Kentucky to hand-select a single cask. The reasoning changes property to property, but the instinct is the same: give guests something they can only get by being there, and something worth talking about once they’ve left.
Hotels are becoming whiskey makers
At Titanic Hotel Belfast, the hotel doesn’t make the whiskey. Titanic Distillers operates independently, in partnership rather than shared ownership, though the hotel built an entire guest package around the connection, including a guided distillery tour and tasting. “The Titanic Distillers Package brings together two of Belfast’s greatest stories, shipbuilding and whiskey, in one unforgettable experience,” said Adrian McNally, general manager of Titanic Hotel Belfast. Siobhan Winston, general manager of Titanic Distillers, called the collaboration “distinctive, social and memorable.”
At Cashel Palace, the five-star Irish estate built in 1732, that idea took the form of a three-year-old Irish pot still whiskey, matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks and made in partnership with Tipperary Boutique Distillery and Coolmore Farms, which grows the barley on land surrounding the Rock of Cashel. It’s the hotel’s second bespoke spirit, following its 1732 Gin. “The project reflects a shared philosophy between all three partners,” said Adriaan Bartel, general manager. “From field to glass, every stage of production has been guided by a desire to create something authentic, expressive and deeply connected to Tipperary.”
The Store, a 101-room hotel inside a former Oxford department store, bottled its own 12-year single malt with local distillery Hawkridge Distillers, just 100 bottles in total. “With only 100 bottles produced, it’s also something guests can experience exclusively at The Store,” said Simon Drake, general manager.
At The Glasshouse, Autograph Collection in Edinburgh, a converted 18th-century chapel with 77 rooms, including 17 suites named for Scotch whisky regions, the approach was more direct: an original blended malt called YTL Hotels Glenborrodale, bottled by Adelphi and described by the hotel as a whisky it created and owns outright.
In the US, hotels are going further
The Historic Cavalier Hotel and Beach Club in Virginia Beach built a working distillery, Tarnished Truth Distilling Company, into the property itself. Guests can watch the distillers at work through a window in the hotel’s Hunt Room while sipping Discretion Virginia Straight Bourbon Whiskey or Old Cavalier Straight Bourbon Whiskey, both produced on-site.
In Beverly Hills, two rival hotels each created their own. The Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, worked with Beverly Spirits founder Andrew Borenzweig on a whiskey called The Beverly, finished in port wine barrels, with only 210 bottles in existence. Across town, The Beverly Hilton marked its 70th anniversary with a limited, 100-proof whiskey called The Beverly Hilton Reserve, poured into cocktails at the hotel’s CIRCA 55 restaurant.
At The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay in California, the resort’s director of restaurants traveled to Kentucky to personally select a barrel of 1792 Barrel Select Bourbon from Sazerac, with notes of cherry, orange, cinnamon raisin bread, caramel, vanilla, cinnamon and anise. The only place to experience this particular barrel selection is at The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, where it is served in the Gold Fashioned and Fitzgerald Old Fashioned at The Conservatory, while supplies last.
And it’s not just hotels
The same pattern has reached the water. Celebrity Cruises has partnered directly with distilleries to create fleet-exclusive barrels, and according to the cruise line, it’s the first cruise line to work with Rabbit Hole Distillery on a single-barrel bourbon available only onboard.
The line also carries a custom 12-year-old rye blend from WhistlePig Distillery and holds what it describes as the only cruise line allocation of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, through a partnership with Brown-Forman. Guests can build their own Old Fashioned from more than 25 bourbon choices at sea.
What comes next
The bottles themselves are almost beside the point. What these hotels are really selling is a reason to keep talking about the stay after checkout, a story a guest can only tell because they were in that specific room, at that specific bar, on that specific night. A chocolate on the pillow doesn’t survive the trip home. A 100-bottle whiskey release does, and it comes with a story that a five-star rating never will.
That’s a different kind of loyalty program than points and upgrades. It’s one built on scarcity and bragging rights, and it may end up mattering more to the next generation of luxury travelers than the thread count ever did.
Jennifer Allen is a retired professional chef and long-time writer. Her work appears in dozens of publications, including MSN, Yahoo, The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. These days, she’s busy in the kitchen developing recipes and traveling the world, and you can find all her best creations at Cook What You Love.