POUR DECISIONS
Acclaimed Phoenix cocktail bar pops up at San Antonio's Hotel Emma
Little Rituals is stopping by Sternewirth for one night only.
One of the world’s best hotel bars is checking in at San Antonio’s Hotel Emma. Phoenix’s Little Rituals will stop by Sternewirth for a one-night-only pop-up between 3-8 pm on Tuesday, July 7.
In the desert city, Little Rituals is located on a property many may not associate with award-winning mixology: a downtown Residence Inn. But since bartenders Aaron DeFeo and Ross Simon opened the place in 2019, it has earned a string of accolades including a one-pin rating in the prestigious Pinnacle Guide and multiple Outstanding Bar Program nominations for the James Beard Awards.
In 2025, Tales of the Cocktail — America’s most prominent spirits conference — named Little Rituals the Best U.S. Hotel Bar at its annual Spirited Awards, often considered the “Oscars of the bar industry.”
In Phoenix, the bar is known for its exacting approach to barcraft, making all of its various tinctures, ices, infusions, and syrups in-house. Little Rituals squeezes all of its citrus daily, and it uses seasonal produce in both its cocktail and food menu.
While the lounge isn’t bringing along its snacks, it will feature a lineup of creative drinks. A white grapefruit and koji paloma is garnished with guajillo chile salt and “grapefruit paint.” The Crisp Martini is garnished with a pickled grape, a kimchi cocktail onion, and a Castlevetrano olive and flavored with something called “martini seasoning,” which would no doubt taste amazing on an avocado toast.
The bar is so devoted to its DIY ethos, in fact, that it even produces a proprietary spirit, a mezcal-based passion fruit liqueur called Maracuyá. At the pop-up, it will be mixed with joven mezcal in the Pazcal (Bartender’s Handshake), industry slang for a bar or shot served to a fellow bartender.
Still, no industry bona fides are required to get into Hotel Emma’s residence bar. The one-time event has no cover.
