Ritz-Carlton Riyadh shakes up beverage menu with master mixologist

Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh boasts a new F&B menu with fine traditions of culinary excellence, which have long defined the brand, now interact with new avenues of innovation, art and science, delivering new experiences.
Having earlier this year successfully launched inventive new coffee brewing techniques at Chorisia lobby lounge — the first of a kind in the Kingdom — the award-winning property is now writing new chapters in its much decorated food and beverage story.
This summer, a master craftsman of the genre was welcomed into the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh fold with exactly this in mind: Beverage Manager and mixologist Maxim Schulte, whose skills with drinks have been honed at leading hotels around the world.
For Schulte, a German national, the opportunity to showcase the complex interplay between exotic ingredients, flavors, nutrition, art and even science, which are constituent parts of mixology, for the first time in the Kingdom, is professionally alluring.
“Mixology is about endlessly innovating with ingredients, flavor combinations and presentation,” Schulte explains. “It is also about creating new experiences for guests who demand that something extra.”
“Every mixologist’s challenge is to achieve layers of flavor,” he explains. “It can take five days to get the perfect layering and depth, and then you have to work on presentation. You must push the boundaries if you want to challenge the palate.”
The palette off which he works is a unique mélange of produce, from plants and tree resins to pollen, and inevitably healthy. There’s organic charcoal powder, hydra salts, delicate butter pea flowers, organic aniseed and fennel oils, and a range of scents. There are difficult-to-source oils such as bitter orange oil, and cassia wood which is boiled for several days to release their intense, captivating aromas.
“You have to have a passion for what you’re doing,” says the master mixologist.