I had to laugh. That was honestly the only reasonable reaction to looking at the menu, and realizing I had just spent $45 on a Martini. I was sitting in the lounge at Ilis, the new restaurant from Noma co-founder Mads Refslund. I was expecting to spend. But somehow I had missed that the Citrus Martini I had just enjoyed, made with Japanese gin and shochu, decanted from a beautiful long-necked bottle and served with a selection of elegantly sliced citrus, cost that much. The rest of the cocktails were all in the $16 to $25 range—the new normal for a high-end bar—and I must have skimmed too quickly and assumed the Martini was the same, because, oh my god, $45.
The Martini is about minimalist perfection—there are few places to hide, no juices or spices to mask an unbalanced drink. The ice-cold Martini represents everything upscale and understated, which is at least in part why it continues to have a moment, and perhaps why you’re already primed to want to spend when you sit down at a nice bar to order one. Add the current era of maximalist everything as the backdrop and the uptick in these extra-expensive versions isn’t so hard to understand. But something nags at me. Even if everyone in the supply chain, from the worker who picked the grains to the bartender who has mastered their craft, is being paid a living wage (which I doubt is happening) the math trips me up. Is this the inevitable cost of our current Martini mania, which allows bars to cash in on the romanticization of the drink? Is there more to this than capitalism at work? Is this just the price of a good Martini now?
The thing is, fuck if the Citrus Martini wasn’t great. It’s made with Ki No Bi, a citrus-forward, pine-aged gin from Japan that bar manager Bobby Murphy was desperate to work with. “I was like, no one’s gonna buy this if it’s an upsell option for a normal Martini,” says Murphy—it’d just get stuck on the backbar. So he began designing a more elaborate Martini around it, adding shochu and pine tincture, and serving it with citrus sourced from a local greenhouse. “There’s probably around $7 or $8 worth of spirit in the Martini itself, factoring in labor, and then the sidecar citrus, [which] is at least $3 to $4. It’s probably coming in at a 22 percent pour cost, which is pretty high,” says Murphy. Many bars attempt to keep pour costs—that is, the cost of ingredients compared to the overall price of a drink the restaurant deems sufficient to cover rent, labor and all the other costs of doing business—between 15 and 20 percent. Essentially, Ilis could have charged more.
“Call it loud luxury.”
A number of these hyperexpensive Martinis are simply made with more expensive gins and other specialty ingredients. The Monkey Bar Martini at Monkey Bar in Manhattan, which goes for $34, is also made with Ki No Bi, which retails for about $73. The $40 Gibson at Bemelmans, also in Manhattan, uses Procera Blue Dot gin, which sells for $94, and The Japanese Umami Bitters, which retail for $43. The Proper Reserve Martini at Cote steakhouse in Miami, $55, is made with Chopin Family Reserve vodka, which retails for $130. At Empress by Boon in San Francisco, the $150 Martini features saffron-infused gin. And at the Gold Room in Manhattan, the $250 Martini justifies itself by calling on Nolet’s Reserve Gin, which goes for $700 a bottle.
Some Martinis also jump in price depending on other, non-standard Martini ingredients. Dan Smith, the general manager at Queen Mary Tavern in Chicago, wanted to use Italian Alba white truffles in a drink. “The botanicals and the spices in gin turn out to be a very natural combo,” he said. The White Truffle Martini on the menu is made with Austrian eau de vie producer Hans Reisetbauer’s Blue Gin (retail: about $56) infused with shaved white truffles, a seasonal addition to the menu and at $40 over twice the price of most other offerings. “This is a drink that’s expensive, but in a way that is completely justified by the intrinsic cost of the ingredients that went into it,” says Smith. “It’s not arbitrarily expensive because it’s in a fancy glass or something.”
What counts as arbitrarily expensive, of course, depends on the consumer, but often the ingredients pushing up the price are garnishes or sidecars, which can seem a touch gratuitous. There’s this $30 Martini at San Francisco’s Aphotic, which is made with the bar’s own seaweed gin and comes with a caviar-stuffed olive. Not too far away, at Bar Sprezzatura, the rotating specialty Martini, now $40, comes with a sidecar, and with snacks—currently it’s served with truffle-stuffed olives. Back in New York, La Marchande serves custom Martinis starting at $25, which travel upward in price when you add on things like truffled potatoes or a mini beef Wellington from the “garnish” menu; Maison Premiere’s King Cole Martini climbs to $40 when you add 0.6 grams of caviar; and Bar Veronika’s Reserve Martini Tray, which comes with caviar, a tiny potato and a dwarf peach, will run you $50. And for $52, Dante in Beverly Hills serves a Grey Goose Martini with caviar on the side (at the location in New York’s West Village, it’s available for $46).
Phil Collins, beverage director for Bar Sprezzatura’s parent brand TableOne Hospitality, attributes this to consumer desire for an indulgent showpiece, something good that also makes other guests turn their heads. “I was hesitant to put a Martini of that caliber and price range on the menu, but that was quickly quelled when I saw five ordered on opening night,” he says. And once you’ve exhausted all the $20 Martinis, where else is there to go? Murphy and Smith also report that the price doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone. It may be expensive, but there’s math and logic on the customer side as well. Maybe you’re sticking to one cocktail, and you’re willing to spend more because of that. Maybe, because the Martini feels luxe to begin with, a beef Wellington garnish seems completely reasonable. Or maybe money is no object, and being seen drinking a Martini with a sidecar of caviar is its own thrill. Call it loud luxury.
Of course, some of these Martinis only serve to remind one that cost doesn’t always equal quality—it is not hard to spend a lot of money on a bad drink. Murphy recounts going to a popular hotel bar recently: “I got a Tanqueray 10 Martini. That Martini was $43. And it was not a very good Martini.” Similarly, on a recent Martini crawl (“for research”) I found the $20 options often beat out those at $35 and above. For Murphy, the point of his $45 Citrus Martini is not just to telegraph luxury, but also to make sure the experience matches. The Martini has to actually be worth $45. Then again, anything is worth what someone is willing to pay.
