The kitchen has the chef, but who does the bar have? Ask the right question and find a world of opportunity.

That’s what F&B Director Tony Porcellini and Assistant F&B Director Luciano Sperduto are doing at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida. The renovation of their poolside Cabana Bar and Beach Club is only one example of a property-wide concentration on raising respect for the bar.

SOUTH BEACH VIBE
Pre-renovation, the poolside bar was whimsical, if a bit dated, with shell-shaped menus. Now, white sheers and dark hardwood embody South Beach chic.

Along with the décor, the bar’s food and cocktail menus are also undergoing renovations. “The Cabana menu changes twice a year, and beverages change right along,” says Porcellini. “And it’s not a ‘list’ anymore; it’s a ‘menu.’ Look at all the work we make a chef do with a new menu. We make him sweat it out. He does tastings, and everyone throws in their two cents. But then we just throw the beverages on at the end. The beverage menu deserves the same respect and attention.

“Culinary is a fine-tuned machine. It has been around forever, and the systems have been perfected. The bar doesn’t have anything like it. Ask people, ‘Who’s the chef of the bar?’ They say the bartender. That’s like saying the kitchen is no more than the cook. Where’s the bar chef?”

Porcellini promotes Sperduto as the point man for a complete overhaul of their beverage approach. “Luciano is bar-certified by Beverage Alcohol Resource (BAR) and was in the first graduating class. It’s like being a sommelier of spirits.” Together the two checked out New York speakeasies and Miami hotspots and noted the comeback of the cocktail.

The Cabana menu is Asian-influenced with a variety of egg rolls, chopped salads, and Caribbean jerk spiced chicken. The Onyx bar showcases rums and tequilas by region, but the highlight is cocktails.

“When we create the drink,” Sperduto says, “we pair the spirit with an ingredient.” Porcellini adds, “We work with herbs in season. Every cocktail is a seasonal creation now.”

The new Cabana drink menu features cuisine-centric cocktails, each with island flair. Sugarcane & Tarragon is made with rum, brown sugar, pineapple leaves, tarragon leaves, and lime juice. Reposado & Cucumber mixes Cabo Wabo Reposado tequila with agave nectar. And the inspiration keeps coming. “We develop specialty drinks for each holiday,” says Porcellini, “and we’re always busy developing wild new ideas.”

“In many cases, we’re pairing drinks with particular dishes,” says Sperduto. In place of the usual salted rim, his Margarita is topped with salty lemon-lime foam. “We paired these Margaritas with fish tacos as an amuse, and it went on to become a banquet pairing.”

Infusion is their new hobby, and one manifestation of this is the new Haiku Screw, a ginger-infused Screwdriver. “We’re working in my office right now with Jameson,” Porcellini says. “I was thinking Irish—whiskey, coffee beans, mint.” Luciano ups the ante with a Whiskey Sling with fresh lemon infused with almond syrup.

Their big experiment right now is vodka infused with Bazooka bubble gum. The drink will be garnished with tiny custom comic books.

They also dip into molecular cuisine for inspiration. Sperduto gives the details: “We’ve got a Tequila Sunset made with a xanthan gum grenadine ball to create a real sunset in the glass. At Kimono, we serve a deconstructed Andes Candy cocktail with a mint ball out of xanthan gum and a foam with chocolate flavors. At bluezoo, we have a deconstructed Cosmo with cranberry foam. We’re working with liquid nitrogen, too.”

TRAINING FOCUS
Porcellini and Sperduto are having a lot of fun, so it’s even more impressive to find them building a strong development and training infrastructure around their creative leaps.

“Pretty soon everyone started looking to the kitchen for inspiration,” says Porcellini. “We have beverage books in our offices like you see cookbooks in chef’s offices. We interview new bartenders like we’d hire a chef.

Further, the kitchen trains a certain way. “No more, ‘Hi, Mr. Bartender, follow the other bartender around, and have a good time.’ We train all 72 bartenders for four hours each quarter. When we change a beverage menu, everyone presents two or three drinks, and we come for the tasting.”

Sperduto has been working on standardized drink recipes, and he’s up to 22. “We free pour, but we pour test every day. If you see a bartender doing a jig, they failed their pour test for the day. We free pour the spirit, but we measure the ingredients. I don’t want anyone free pouring simple syrup and wrecking the cocktail. That’s our biggest pet peeve.”

It’s a spirited approach to the bar, with a genuine commitment to raising respect for beverage service throughout the entire property.

John Paul Boukis helped develop the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s publishing division and is a founding editor of HOTEL F&B. He is based in Tampa.