Cocktails at City Lodge Hotels just got better!

Cocktail menus at Courtyard Hotels, City Lodge Hotels and Town Lodges now feature cool new options using more fresh ingredients and expanded flavour profiles. You’ll still find your favourite classic tipples, such as the Cosmopolitan, Long Island Iced Tea, Mojito and Strawberry Daiquiri, to name a few, plus a range of new recipes with enticing names such as:

• Bang Babbelas: Brandy shaken with curacao extract, a blend of spices, tomato juice and lemon. Served over cubed ice and garnished with biltong and a celery stick.
  
• City-Tiki: Captain Morgan Spiced Gold Rum blended cold with watermelon, fresh pineapple and lime juice. Served tall over cubed ice.
  
• Egoli Old Fashioned: Johnnie Walker Gold Label infused with white peach extract and bitters. Served on the rocks with orange zest.
  
• Leopard & Lime: Bain's Cape Mountain Whisky shaken with triple sec, vanilla sugar and pressed lime. Served over cubed ice and charged with a splash of soda.
  
• Life is Peachie Litchi: Cîroc Vodka infused with peach extract, litchi juice and pressed lime. Served tall over cracked ice and charged with chilled soda.
  
• Pomelo Punch: Don Julio Tequila infused with pink grapefruit, foraged thyme and pressed lemon. Served tall over cracked ice and charged with chilled lemonade.

The new cocktails are beautifully crafted, using fresh Mzansi ingredients including citrus fruits, berries, seasonal fruit, herbs and edible flowers, and presented in appealing glassware. The City-Tiki is bound to become a favourite, served in an alluring tropical tiki mug!

Mixers range from traditional sodas to fresh fruit juices, and spirits used from premium brands include Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve and Laphroaig Scotch Whisky, Tanqueray No. Ten Gin, Don Julio Tequila, Cîroc Vodka, Aperol Aperitivo and Valdo Prosecco.

Lindiwe Sangweni-Siddo, chief operating officer, explains, “The aim with our titivated beverages menu is to offer our guests’ favourite beverages and brands, as well as new trendy drinks to tickle the tastebuds. You will recognise tried-and-tested favourites in our offering, enhanced by a selection of popular premium brands. Each of our hotel brands has a menu unique to what we have anticipated our guests prefer, and now with some surprises to give guests staying across our brands something new and tantalising to try.”

Rollout of the new beverages menus has begun in the group’s coastal hotels in Cape Town, Gqeberha, Umhlanga and Durban, with the remainder of the hotels following in due course.

Suppliers who have assisted in developing the new drinks offering and training barmen include Liquid Concepts, Monin Gourmet Flavoured Syrups, Meridian Wine Merchants, Vinimark Trading, Spirits and Bubbles SA, DGB, Diageo, Vini Italia and Distell.