Author Topic: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails  (Read 6678 times)

nereo

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oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« on: February 17, 2015, 03:33:27 PM »
as the poor sop that started a thread about the absurdity of craft cocktail tipping (below) and then took some heat from several posters, I was drawn to this WP article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/gulp-howd-we-get-to-the-22-cocktail/2015/02/13/c374695c-b192-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html

My favorite part is the explanation of value, and how it can be a much better deal for the customer.  Or as Buffett says, "price is what you pay, value is what you get."

previous thread:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/the-absurdity-of-%27craft-cocktail%27-tipping-expectations/msg458215/#msg458215

NoraLenderbee

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2015, 03:50:09 PM »
Quote
rye whiskey cocktail with carrot and ginger juice, coconut milk and spiced soda

$14 doesn't sound so outrageous for a drink like that, assuming you have it once in your life. To me the outrageous part is messing up a good rye cocktail with coconut milk. The horror!

gimp

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2015, 01:27:20 PM »
Is this the right time to make jokes about how whiskey should only be drunk neat, and anyone who doesn't is a neanderthal? :)

PencilThinStash

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2015, 02:02:50 PM »
Is this the right time to make jokes about how whiskey should only be drunk neat, and anyone who doesn't is a neanderthal? :)

People bastardizing a beautiful glass of whiskey is never a joking matter, my friend!

...oh, damn it, when did I become THAT guy?

Philociraptor

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2015, 02:14:46 PM »
Is this the right time to make jokes about how whiskey should only be drunk neat, and anyone who doesn't is a neanderthal? :)

I'll stick with tequila. Lime and soda water are acceptable additives.

skyrefuge

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2015, 03:03:31 PM »
Is this the right time to make jokes about how whiskey should only be drunk neat, and anyone who doesn't is a neanderthal? :)

Jokes? You don't even have to make jokes; the whole notion of craft cocktails is simply illogical. Much of that article's explanation for increased cocktail prices was the increased cost of the small-batch/craft spirits being used in them. I'll be generous and grant that there are actual, tastable differences in certain craft spirits vs. macro-distilled spirits. Ok, that is being really generous, since most craft spirits are probably bullshit, and bought from a factory distillery, but let's ignore that for now and assume that someday, small-batch craft spirits will be a real thing, with not only a tastable difference from factory spirits, but a tastable difference that would be rated more-pleasurable in a blind taste test (holy shit are we piling up the assumptions here).

So we'll assume you have this fine spirit with ephemeral notes of fairy-licked oak, and that's worth extra money. The minute you dump coconut milk or orange juice or whatever other random shit on there, you blow that fairy-licked oak into oblivion. That's as dumb as buying a Ferrari and only driving it at 25 mph in your residential neighborhood, or installing a $20,000 Pono-based sound system into it to listen to high-rez symphonies over the road, wind, and engine noise. What a scam these guys have on getting unsophisticated people to part with their money by trying to appear sophisticated!

And I say all this as a guy who has actually had (and paid for!) the cocktail the article mentioned from Aviary where "you can crack open spherical ice to release a $22 whiskey cocktail". (not worth $22, but slingshotting that ice-sphere was totally awesome!)

gimp

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2015, 03:32:08 PM »
Tequila is great too - if you reddit, you should join the tequila subreddit. (And the bourbon and scotch subs [bourbon is really for all american whiskey]).

By the way, Tommy's in SF is the best tequila bar, ever. A flight of Tapatio, and a generous pour of chichicapa (mezcal), came out to $16 when I was last there. Fantastic place.

It is true, most new american whiskey on the market is simply bought from LDI or similar. Or it's aged in a way to make it browner quicker - hopefully just small casks and temperature controls causing large swings, but often much shittier methods (high pressure through oak, that sort of thing). Some distilleries are up-front with what they do and why - for example, great lakes distillery makes a very good but rather young whiskey - but most pretend to be something they're not. There are only several bottles selling over $50 that are any good. There are almost no new bottles selling over $30 that are worth the price. And sadly, my two favorites - old weller 107 and elmer t lee - are all but gone off the market, since they sell too damn fast, and I've only half a bottle of each left.

Thankfully, most 'artisinal' cocktails use reasonable liquor, not all the new garbage appearing on the shelves. Still, I can easily tell the difference between a cocktail made with a $10 bottle and a $25 bottle, but over $25, unless they do something crazy and use something BTAC or similar... eh, can't really tell the difference. Neat, I can tell what's what with no problem.

I've transitioned my home bourbon to old granddad 100 (bottled in bond.) Rittenhouse for rye. Both are $20 a bottle, and they're good for a cocktail. Even when I want to make it stronger with the OGD 114 instead of the 100, there's hardly any reason to use anything more expensive than $20-25 a bottle depending on the market and area (NYC pays more wholesale than I pay retail in California for example) unless burning money is part of the point, as opposed to an unfortunate side effect, when choosing american whiskey. (And if you put anything over $40-in-NYC a bottle of scotch into a mixed drink, fuck off with that shit.)

$25 a bottle means the drink shouldn't be more than $7 in standard bar terms, $10 if it's a bit stronger or fancier. I respect that they need to charge about 1/4 of the bottle per pour to make money, they have a lot of overhead. This is generally too rich for my blood and I make my own drinks at home and only pay 1/15 per pour. $22 though ... nah. Nope. You'd better be putting lagavulin 12 in the glass, and leaving out the rest of the ingredients, for $22 in a bar.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2015, 03:33:39 PM by gimp »

RFAAOATB

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2015, 03:51:33 PM »
The best $20 drink I had was a comically large margarita.  I want a cocktail to be about as much gimmicky sugar and alcohol you can pour to get me club drunk and smiley.

Tabaxus

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2015, 08:00:25 PM »
Is this the right time to make jokes about how whiskey should only be drunk neat, and anyone who doesn't is a neanderthal? :)

People bastardizing a beautiful glass of whiskey is never a joking matter, my friend!

...oh, damn it, when did I become THAT guy?

A splash of water and a single ice cube brings out flavor that you don't get otherwise.

MgoSam

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2015, 10:15:31 AM »
Yeah, I've had some "well-crafted cocktails," that cost $18 in Minnesota (so this is very high for the area) and honestly, felt like the vesper I had for $5 at a local watering hole was much better. Of course, YMMV.

skyrefuge

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2015, 10:28:32 AM »
A splash of water and a single ice cube brings out flavor that you don't get otherwise.

If the whiskey-maker thought their whiskey tasted better with a higher water content, wouldn't they have just crafted it that way? And doesn't cooling the drink with an ice cube just diminish the flavor, counteracting the flavor-enhancing you just accomplished by diluting the alcohol?

LOGIC MUST PREVAIL IN PLEASURABLE SPIRIT IMBIBING

MayDay

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2015, 10:34:03 AM »
A splash of water and a single ice cube brings out flavor that you don't get otherwise.

If the whiskey-maker thought their whiskey tasted better with a higher water content, wouldn't they have just crafted it that way? And doesn't cooling the drink with an ice cube just diminish the flavor, counteracting the flavor-enhancing you just accomplished by diluting the alcohol?

LOGIC MUST PREVAIL IN PLEASURABLE SPIRIT IMBIBING

This is a question I have long pondered. 

Guizmo

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2015, 11:05:18 AM »
A splash of water and a single ice cube brings out flavor that you don't get otherwise.

If the whiskey-maker thought their whiskey tasted better with a higher water content, wouldn't they have just crafted it that way? And doesn't cooling the drink with an ice cube just diminish the flavor, counteracting the flavor-enhancing you just accomplished by diluting the alcohol?

LOGIC MUST PREVAIL IN PLEASURABLE SPIRIT IMBIBING

There is a distillery in Denver that encourages people to try their whiskey with a splash of water, so people can taste other flavors.

Kaspian

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2015, 12:15:22 PM »
Craft cocktails" are what my friends and I get up to when we've run out of everything else in the fridge.  It's the dregs of the booze cabinet/mix and hilarious that people pay so much for them.

Some of my favourites thus far:

- Cheap red wine and peach soda pop (discovered last weekend)
- 7-Up and tequila (named after my brother, Jon--we call the drink a "Juan")
- Romanian blueberry liquor and root beer (this is delicious and tastes like candy!)

Vertical Mode

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2015, 04:25:29 PM »
People seriously shell out $20+ for a single drink?!

It seems like one would need to really seek out a place with cocktails this expensive. Hell, drinks here in Boston aren't exactly cheap, but I don't think I've ever encountered cocktails going for more than $14-15, and frankly they sounded like more trouble than they were worth. The best cocktails I've ever had have been in the $9-12 range, and were so exceptional that even my inner Mustachian had little quarrel paying that price (bartender was an absolute alchemist).

austin

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #15 on: February 19, 2015, 04:33:01 PM »
Making fun of hipster facial hair on the mr. money mustache forum, in the anti-mustachian subforum.

gimp

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #16 on: February 19, 2015, 11:38:06 PM »
A splash of water and a single ice cube brings out flavor that you don't get otherwise.

If the whiskey-maker thought their whiskey tasted better with a higher water content, wouldn't they have just crafted it that way? And doesn't cooling the drink with an ice cube just diminish the flavor, counteracting the flavor-enhancing you just accomplished by diluting the alcohol?

LOGIC MUST PREVAIL IN PLEASURABLE SPIRIT IMBIBING

Point one: I disagree about adding ice, at all. Personal preference. Dulls the tastebuds, dulls the taste.

Point two: it's not the addition of water to dilute the drink, it's the relatively short-term effect of the mixing of water, alcohol, and all the other stuff held in suspension (the stuff to give it taste.) Also, for some people, it actually is the dilution because they can't taste much past the burn (especially for higher proof whiskies.) Again, personal preference, but I do exactly none of that; the higher the proof, the happier I am.

Do I get a well-groomed beard and mustache now? Because when I go two-four months without shaving, I just look like various stages of hobo.

wtjbatman

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Re: oh goody, more $20+ cocktails
« Reply #17 on: February 25, 2015, 04:30:27 PM »
Making fun of hipster facial hair on the mr. money mustache forum, in the anti-mustachian subforum.


 

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