In today’s luxury hotel market, it takes more to stand out than a marble bath or complimentary shoeshine service (though we appreciate both). Properties have become increasingly creative in their efforts to “surprise and delight,” as the saying goes. This year of travels held numerous delightful surprises for us, and these were a few of the most memorable.

Elephant-Dung Gin

Jabulani, Greater Kruger Area, South Africa

With its house gin, Jabulani takes its elephant theme to the outer conceivable limit. The safari lodge and a distiller collect elephant dung, clean it and then use the undigested botanicals to flavor the spirit. It’s smooth and well-balanced, tasty in both a martini and a gin and tonic. When our guide indicated the scat of a rhino he was tracking, I suggested, in jest, that Jabulani also make a rhino-dung gin and eventually a whole dung series. “No,” he replied, “rhinos only eat grass; elephants eat all sorts of vegetation.” So a rhino-dung gin would lack the complexity of an elephant-dung gin? “That’s right.” Ah, what a shame.