The New York Hilton Midtown is creating quite the buzz around town with one of its most recent groups. Namely, the 450,000 adopted honey bees it’s housing in six hives on its fifth-floor, 16,000-square-foot green rooftop.
While the residents may not fit the label of “space hogs,” as they are technically overnighting on-property, the banquet manager and revenue team certainly may be concerned that they mainly take their meals off-site in the foliage of Central Park, five blocks away.
The bees are expected to produce approximately 300 pounds of honey annually, however, which will certainly enhance the hotel’s cuisine offering.
The Italian, Russian and Carniolan queens of each hive even have their own names: Shelby, Ruby, Phoebe, Suite B, Beatrice and Connie, as a tribute to Hilton founder, Conrad Hilton.
Bee-powered menu items include honey-dipped fried chicken and rosemary-honey flatbreads in the hotel’s urban market, Herb N’ Kitchen, as well as bourbon-based honey peach cobbler milkshakes and honey-fortified grapefruit cosmopolitans in the recently renovated Bridges Bar.
Those playing along at home can get their own buzz on via the following cocktail recipe:
Honey-Kissed Cosmopolitan
1 3/4 oz. ruby red grapefruit Absolut Vodka
1 ¼ oz. cranberry juice
1 oz. Hilton rooftop honey
Muddled lime and rosemary
Mix lime, rosemary, honey and ice. Add one vodka and cranberry juice. Shake, stir and enjoy.