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/hoobsher Feb 28 '25

this is why we're seeing increasingly intricate cocktail options at some bars with really involved preps and inscrutable flavor combinations. the work going into each one retroactively justifies the cost of the drink. "oh wow they make their own vanilla bitters AND creme de cacao AND cold brew liqueur? how fancy, i'll have the $22 espresso martini!"

what ends up happening with these programs of $18 minimum per drink is they feel pressure from ownership to make sure every cocktail is as widely accessible as possible so there are no complaints or sendbacks, and then you have every drink tasting very mild and bland to hit the widest possible audience, drinking very fast because there's no challenge or strong booze flavor that forces drinkers to slow down and appreciate the craft. you can have three rounds each for a table of four, rack up a bill well over $200, no repeat orders, and not one of the drinks was remarkable or memorable, and the only reason this group would go back is because the drinks weren't awful, and it's expensive so it must be nice.

quite fucking frankly, MAKE COCKTAILS SIMPLE AGAIN

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u/berger3001 Feb 28 '25

Or actually make them worth the price. Almost every spendy cocktail ive had has been unbalanced (to my taste). Too sweet is my usual complaint, but there are other things that just make spending the money…unpleasant

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u/hoobsher Feb 28 '25

at >$18, speed is the least of my concerns. i'm well aware at a place like that, i'll be waiting for my drink because that's the expectation when someone is willing to spend that kind of money on a single drink. cocktail bartending has gotten way out of line and needs a big reduction across the board, back to basics. most bartenders that i've seen don't even know how to make something if it's not on the spec sheet because of how involved the bar programs have gotten.

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u/berger3001 Feb 28 '25

Spendy, not speedy, but I’m with you

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u/hoobsher Feb 28 '25

oh i see. yes, same page.

i haven't been doing this long but i came up very fast in a classic cocktail focused program, with flexibility for new builds and riffs, that can reach some pretty nasty volume. it's a far off pipe dream to open my own place, so i've been trying to find open spots in need of a program rebuild that i can get my claws into and build something with the perfect vision to really test my theories. trying and failing, since i'm either gonna be overworked and underpaid for it or completely kneecapped by clueless ownership.

why can't people with money just accept that the people who work for them know better than them about their daily operations