Raffles Hotel Le Royal’s Iconic Elephant Bar Launches ‘World Gin Tour’

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (2023): The iconic Elephant Bar at the 90-year-old Raffles Hotel Le Royal has launched a new “World Gin Tour” showcasing highlights from one of Southeast Asia’s most diverse and thoughtfully curated gin collections.

The yearlong “World Gin Tour” spotlights select labels from Elephant Bar’s collection of more than 150 distinctive gins from around the world. Whether classic concoctions or modern inventions, Elephant Bar’s expert bartenders can make them all.

Each month will introduce a new special cocktail menu featuring refreshing drinks made with a different country’s gin, in addition to a “gin masterclass” that includes cocktail flights for two hours highlighting the featured gin (priced at $28). Upcoming stops on the tour include Australian gin (February), Spanish gin (March), Cambodian gin (April) and Irish gin (May). The “World Gin Tour” kicked off in January with French gin. Each stop on the tour begins with an exclusive, one-night “bar takeover” featuring guest mixologists.

Guests are invited to fill up their “gin passes” and win exciting prizes. The pass consists of 12 stamps. Those who get six stamps will receive a complimentary Elephant Bar gin masterclass; nine stamps wins a complimentary bottle of Elephant Bar Dry Gin; and 12 stamps earns a cocktail tailor made by the guest to be featured on Elephant Bar’s menu for one month.

With its rich wood accents, colorful ceiling frescoes and historic photographs on the walls, Elephant Bar is a long-time institution in Phnom Penh. Wicker chairs and leather sofas bask behind high French windows and arched colonnades in true colonial style. Among the bar’s guests over the past 90+ years have been Charlie Chaplin, Somerset Maugham and Jacqueline Kennedy, who sipped the first Femme Fatale—now a signature cocktail at Elephant Bar.

Elephant Bar was recently nominated for Cambodia’s Top 30 Bar Awards.

Voted the No. 1 hotel in Cambodia by readers of the US-based travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler in its annual Readers’ Choice Awards in October, Raffles Hotel Le Royal originally opened in 1929. The hotel features 175 rooms and suites that underwent a full refurbishment as part of a meticulous one-year restoration project in 2019.