Friends with Benefits: Kenny Hwong at Circa Resort & Casino -Las Vegas Magazine

Kenny Hwong is the epitome of a great bartender. He’s friendly and funny. He cares about the guest. And he’s got the skills. He’s proved it by advancing to the top 30 in a global bartending competition—the 2024 United States Bartenders Guild Presents World Class sponsored by Diageo, taking place June 1 in Denver. If he wins, he’ll go on to the finals in Shanghai and represent the U.S.

You can find Hwong bartending at Legacy Club at Circa Resort & Casino. He was part of the opening team when the rooftop lounge opened in 2020. In 2017, he was inspired to craft cocktails after paying a visit to the NoMad Bar at NoMad Las Vegas. “I went to that bar to check it out,” says the Vegas native. “I was in shock that there was this style of bartending—craft cocktails. The way they bartended, the technique. I fell in love with it—I wanted to be that.”

He sharpened his skills, “like a Japanese knife,” he says, and he landed at Legacy Club—one of the best cocktail bars in the city, and home to other USBG competition-winning bartenders.

“To be a good bartender besides good drink-making is it’s all about the people,” he says. “You have to know how to read people and show them a good time. We’re here to make sure that wherever they are from, they feel like they’re home. To help them experience a good time and have a good cocktail, too. That’s what you’ll have at Legacy.”

Libation: What’s Your Number?

Try one of Hwong’s own creations, the What’s Your Number? “It’s how spicy you want your night in Vegas to be,” he says. You can choose the spice by adding one to five dashes of habanero tincture to a 72-hour clarified coconut milk punch that is served with a coconut cream pastry to help cool your tongue!

Benefit: Ask for the Inhale, Hwong’s own creation that helped secure his place into a global bartending competition’s top 30.

Circa Resort & Casino. 702.247.2258. circalasvegas.com

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