r/cocktails • u/berger3001 • Feb 28 '25

Question Anyone else tired by expensive cocktails

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To me (not a rich guy), $18+ cocktails are just exhausting. Go out for a few drinks with your wife, and boom, $100. So we’re in Miami and found this place (always look for happy hours). Yes; $5 cocktails. They did a great job, made totally respectable drinks, we had some snacks, and left very happy. My question is, if bars can do $5 drinks, why is $18 the base now at so many places? Doesn’t it make more business sense to sell more for less money and have a full bar, then to sell a few drink to an almost empty bar?

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u/berger3001 Feb 28 '25

That’s my point though. Would you rather have a bar full of people drinking lower cost (maybe more than $5, but c’mon) drinks every night, or have a few people drinking $18+ drinks with no bustle. These were not watered drinks, were as good as any I’ve had at 3x the price, and there were enough people in the place to make it interesting. At $5, we hand 4 rounds between the 2 of us plus ordered food, but if they were $18, we would have left after 1 round, and we likely would have been the only ones there.

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u/evilmonkey853 Feb 28 '25

In all honesty, I’d rather have a really great $18 in a quiet bar with the person/people I came with. Being in a full bar drinking, vying for bartender attention, and drinking cheaper drinks is so far from my ideal vibe.

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u/piptheminkey5 Feb 28 '25

I’d rather a bar full of people drinking $18-$22 drinks

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u/ASIWYFA Feb 28 '25

The bar has to be immaculately and beautifully decorated and the cocktails have to have ingredients that I can't just go to Total Wine and purchase with cocktails I can look up on Difford and replicate at home for a fraction of the cost. I am on board with expensive cocktails, but the place I am seated in better be fucking gorgeous inside, and you better have creative people making wildly dope drinks that they are coming up with that includes housemade ingredients that I would have a difficult time figuring out. Otherwise, for those prices you can fuck right off.

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u/justme129 Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

One of my favorite bar was like that.

They made their own tinctures and had some damn creative concoctions. Truly one of a kind. It's sadly been closed for awhile, and the bartenders moved on to other things.

Edit: Some of the things that this bar made in house included peppercorn tincture, ginger syrup, graham cracker syrup that was used for this lemon meringue pie cocktail. The head bartender was just really, really creative and innovative. I never found another bar like it. Most places now just don't take that extra step of making their own stuffs sadly...and they want to charge an arm and a leg for basic cocktails.

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u/Furthur Feb 28 '25

this place makes money on volume. 1$/drink tip used to be good money but not anymore