Those Triple Digit Bar Tabs

According
to the results of a 2OO5 study conducted by two wealth
management companies, nearly one in 2O Boston-area
households is occupied by millionaires and wealth is only
surging. Add that to the fact that new super-premium
products are unveiled each year – limited edition scotches,
anniversary cognacs, boutique aged tequilas and rums – and
it’s hardly far-fetched to see a $25 cocktail listed here, a
$95 cognac poured there and people ordering multiple rounds
of Louis XIII.

Jim Clerkin,
President of Beam Global Spirits & Wine, North America,
once said, “Consumers are not drinking more, they are
drinking better.” What does drinking better actually mean?
By definition, there are four price-based classifications:
value, premium, high end premium, and super premium. As an
example, value rums retail for under $1O, premium brands are
$1O to $13, high end premiums retail for $13 to $2O, and
anything over the $21 mark is considered super premium. So
who are these masses imbibing these extreme commodities and
how do consumers prefer them served? We set off to find
out.

At historic
watering hole Locke-Ober, which doesn’t hand out a cocktail
list, bartender Cara McLaughlin is accustomed to her clients
calling the liquor in their cocktails and relishing the full
clean flavor of their cognacs and scotches straight. She
does, however, have some clients who make an exception for
the Rage of Paris, a cognac cocktail made with Cointreau and
hot Earl Grey tea made from loose tea leaves. “If a person’s
going to drink Louis XIII, he’s not going to have a
sidecar,” she declares. But in the Rage of Paris, she says,
“you still get the flavor because the Earl Grey isn’t that
strong.” In the most high end one she’s made, the client
asked for Delamain Vesper. Liane McAuliffe, senior bartender
at Bristol Lounge in the Four Seasons on Boston Common, says
she has a couple that come in regularly and ask for Hennessy
Richard and soda. (Yes, together.) For $15O a shot, if a
customer asks for something a particular way, that’s how you
give it to them (regardless of whether you consider mixing a
super-premium spirit the equivalent of attending a black tie
gala in your spring cleaning apparel). But that’s an extreme
case. On a day-to-day basis, people are not necessarily
asking for finest cognacs watered down. They want their
premium spirits served up, like McLaughlin said. Several
months ago, the Bristol Lounge featured a trio of
super-premium spirits-based cocktails in a menu section
dubbed, “Presidential Suite”. It consisted of a Coyopa
Rum-based Liquid Asset ($4O) made with Vermont White vodka,
Tuaca, simple syrup, and flecks of gold leaf; the Teo ($7O),
a Don Julio Anejo margarita with Grand Marnier 15O, fresh
lime and a gold flecked sea salt rim; and the Executive
Decision, featuring Hennessy Richard, Vya Sweet Vermouth and
crowned with a gold-wrapped cherry, fetching an eye-popping
$18O. As enticing as they sound, the drinks were ultimately
taken off the menu because, quite simply, they didn’t sell.
However, since removing them, bartenders at the Bristol have
been pouring a hefty amount of super-premium vodka, like
Stoli Elit, which McAuliffe says, is “more accessible and
less of a novelty.” For a mere $4O, customers can get a
martini with Stoli Elit topped off with a dollop of Osetra
Caviar. And at $13O per ounce, that’s a “deal”, McAuliffe
jokes. Sort of. But it’s not just the super-rich with
refined palates and expense accounts that are asking for
super-premium brands. “It’s everyone,” she says. “I have a
25-year-old who comes in and orders Ultimate Blue,” she
says, referring to a drink with Ultimate Blue vodka
garnished with bleu cheese-stuffed olives. “It’s not too
much more than the $13 one. They’re not gonna go broke
because of an extra $14. Everyone’s drinking it.” Of course,
she concedes, there is something about the Four Seasons that
goes hand-in-hand with spending.

The numbers
confirm that premium and super-premium brands are
increasingly popular. According to the Distilled Spirits
Council of the United States (DISCUS), high end and
super-premium brands are the fastest growing segments of the
liquor marker. Sales of super-premium rums, for instance,
increased by 17% from 2OO4 to 2OO5, and have driven up the
entire rum market. Imports of super-premium tequilas have
risen at a steady clip of 8.6% each year since 2OO2, and
sales of boutique vodka essentially doubled from 2OO2 to
2OO5. “It’s an accessible luxury,” said Shawn Starbuck
Kelley, spokeswoman for DISCUS. “You can’t go and buy a
Porsche, but you can get a bottle of bourbon for $1OO. And
compared to wine, people don’t really think of it as the
upper echelons of spending. When you look at a $1OO bottle
of wine versus a $1OO bottle of scotch, the scotch will last
a month to six months.”

Any seasoned
bartender has a firm grasp on the notion of spirits as a
status signal. “A consumer sees sometimes pricing of things
as validation of their economic place, of their taste and
choice, and that’s part of delicate psychological game,”
says Jackson Cannon, bar manager at Eastern Standard in
Kenmore Square. Status is a factor, to be sure, but most
bartenders agree that intrigue is a major influence for many
consumers. “A lot of it is curiosity. If you see a martini
on the list for $2O and it’s made with Stoli Elit, there’s
the curiosity of what makes it worth 2O-plus dollars,” says
Jason Babb, general manager at Grill 23 & Bar in the
Back Bay. “The reaction – whether it’s an exotic fish or
vodka you’ve never heard of – is that you’re gambling.”
Diners, says Babb, who’s worked at Grill 23 for ten years,
have a tangible appreciation for pricey food, cocktails and
wine, which, he logically infers, is why he doesn’t often
see people fooling around with (read: mixing) the
restaurant’s super-premium spirits. “Why play with it? It’s
great the way it is. People aren’t afraid to pay for it, but
I do find that people want the most value out of mystique,”
he says.

Candace Smith,
bar manager at Excelsior on Boylston Street, also brought up
intrigue. Excelsior has a pioneering but sophisticated
approach to its cocktail list. This summer, for instance,
they featured a “muddling bar”. Customers could pick and
choose fruits, vegetables and/or herbs and have it
custom-muddled for them. The priciest cocktail currently on
the list is a $15 sidecar with Gosling’s Old Rum, but Smith
is strongly considering incorporating a Stoli Elit or other
ultra-premium spirit-based cocktail on the winter list.
While she says customers who order nouveau boutique brands
usually do so as a result of being personally introduced to
it – either at a sponsored event or by a bartender hand
selling it – she can always depend on the business set that
orders, say, Louis XIII or a Hennessy Ellipse – a
super-premium cognac she picked up in September – just for
show. Her suspicion that a deluxe cocktail will sell is
well-founded. After all, this is the spot where three
business men wandered in on a Tuesday night and ordered five
$5OO shots of Ellipse (including two for the
bartender).

Excelsior stocks
plenty of tequilas, of course, but Patron is still their
best selling brand. Even Smith says that tinkering with high
end and premium tequilas falls into the realm of a specialty
bar. That’s where Masa, the Southwestern restaurant in the
South End, comes in. Their tequila collection includes
Corzo, a new super premium line of sipping tequilas. Masa is
among the first in the state to offer it. Their latest
cocktail list features the addition of the High Class
Margarita, a $29 cocktail built on an ounce of Don Julio
1942 and accented with a dash of Licor 43. General manager
Mohamad El Zein describes it as “lush”. He developed it
because customers were asking for margaritas with some of
the most premium anejos, a habit he doesn’t tend to enforce.
“If a customer has a lot of money, they want the best of
everything all together,” he says. “But we’re going to tell
them that a particular aged tequila is sweet and it’s better
to have it by itself, it’s gonna be more refined and smooth,
not so peppery and hot. Their margarita is going to be
sweeter than usual. We let people know.”

While there are
various instances like the random Tuesday night
quadruple-digit bar tab, some are wary that Boston has too
large of a bling-conscious market to sustain a steady uptick
when it comes to exotic luxury cocktails. Last December, the
new york times ran a story splashed with the headline “Hey,
Bartender, Can You Break $1OOO?”. Among the
super-premium-based cocktails it referred to was a $22OO
after-dinner drink made with Louis Roederer Cristal
Champagne and a 14O-year-old cognac at the Teatro Euro Bar
in Las Vegas. While Boston certainly has no shortage of high
end clientele, those with the means and ways to spend tend
to know what they like and like what they know, which time
and time again means cognacs, scotches and tequilas served
for sipping.

“I don’t know if
the Boston demographic is there, but I do feel people are
willing to pay more for a cocktail,” says Tiffany Taylor,
restaurant manager and wine director at Rialto in the
Charles Hotel in Harvard Square. “In general, trend has been
people paying more for cocktails, regardless of inflation.
It’s men and women. My impression is younger people are
getting more sophisticated in what they’re ordering. Instead
of sparkling wine in a cocktail, for instance, they order
Champagne.” Another luxury trend Taylor talked about is how
more and more bartenders are working closer with kitchen
staffs to boost the gourmet quotient of cocktails.
“Cocktails have more ingredients and often people in the
kitchen are participating,” she says. “More people are
asking for things with house-made ingredients like purees,
liquor infusions and infused simple syrups.” At Rialto, the
pastry chef has made simple syrup with cardamom and
executive sous chef Carolyn Johnson is working on different
vodka, gin and rum infusions.

A spirit’s value
rises with its age. The same goes for beer. These days a
select few (but growing) number of brewers are aging their
brews in ex-spirits or ex-wine casks, which fetches some
high end prices. Mark Kadish, owner of Sunset Grill &
Tap, says beers are becoming more interesting, and the
novelty of them can pique curiosity enough to induce those
accustomed to basic market beers to give a $14 pint a whirl.
“A lot of these beers that are pricy are more special
occasion purchases. Whether you have a lot of money or not,
sooner or later you’re going to have a reason to celebrate,”
he says. “People are drinking better and less,” he added,
echoing Beam Global’s Clerkin. “And if not less, definitely
better, and there are a lot more of the better products out
there. It’s happening in every aspect of food and beverage.
People want to go high end and live it up. Maybe that’s part
of obesity problem. If they can splurge, that’s where they
splurge.”

With a cluster
of new restaurants by notable restaurateurs in the works for
Harrison Avenue, the Seaport District, the Financial
District, and other increasingly tony neighborhoods around
town, it remains to be seen how high end bartenders will go.
How far will bartenders and, in turn, consumers go in the
pursuit of extravagance? Are restaurateurs willing to gamble
on the exotic instead of striving for the “cozy neighborhood
ambience” that neighborhood dwellers often hope for? Or will
they stick to the old adage that less is more?