$14 cocktail my @ss try the $16 cocktail and up...and prices keep rising

[DaveO]

A. I'm cheap

B. As much as I've enjoyed alcohol, tasty drinks, mixed drinks etc and understand the costs...I'm still cheap

C. I recall reading the thread here from this past Dec about $14 cocktails in DC

and this article came out by Jessica Sidman in City Paper 2 weeks ago...describing cocktails at $20 and up.

Not knowing all of the ingredients with regard to ever more expensive cocktails, these prices simply blow my mind.

At some point ignore all the commentary about pricing the ingredients and "market" mark ups

As some establishments find they can charge ever higher prices..competing establishments will price similarly and ever higher should the market bear it. ....and evidently the market is willing to bear it.

[Bart]

I'm nearly ready to give up drinking wine at dinner because of the prices. Or maybe I'll start pounding down a couple glasses in the car before going to eat!

My wife and I were at Rasika a few weeks ago and the only Chardonnay they had was 60 bucks ($22 at Total Wine)! And that was one of the cheaper wines on the list.

I don't buy $60 wines for home consumption, so why do I do it when I go out? Hell, for 60 bucks I could have had another meal!

[deangold]

I have been to a couple of restaurants and ordered $12 cocktail only to get them in 6.5oz coupe glasses filled half way. Given melt etc, these two and three liquor cocktails had at most 1-1/4 oz of booze and were more like a half cocktail.

[jiveturk21]

I like to go out. I like to drink. Money, for the most part, is not a concern of mine. But, as I get older, I get more upset with restaurants charging out the wazoo for drinks (specifically cocktails and wine). At the same time, the pure market capitalist that I am says that they should be able to charge whatever the market will allow. On the other hand, I can't believe that places mark-up at the levels that they do (wine at 300 or 400%!). On the flip side, when I like to go out, I want to have fun and that generally is going to include alcohol. However, it burns me up to see a bartender mixing a crappy drink and charging me $15 for it. Then again, I want to try out the newest restaurant and having a few drinks is part of the experience.

Can you tell that this is a personal struggle that I deal with all of the time!? And, no, I am not drinking right now.

[Tweaked]

Fortunately I don't have much interest in fancy cocktail culture and generally stick with beer (many restaurant now have good beer lists, although beer prices are also inching upwards), pick something with bubbles off the by-the-glass list (many restaurant carry something decent in the $8-$10 range), or go with an aperitif (like Pernod, no one is going to charge a lot for a Pernod, because well it's Pernod...which I happen to like). Also, a post dinner drink like port you can usually get away with something decent in the $10 range.

[Choirgirl21]

At least they're not this expensive:

http://firstwefeast.com/drink/the-worlds-most-expensive-cocktails/