Caveat Imbiber

I once asked a very nice good-looking bartender at a swanky hotel bar what she’d recommend. She named a drink I’d never heard of — the Grand something or another — so I asked what was in it. She named a couple of liquors, a syrup and some other ingredients. “Great, how much is it?” I said. I’m glad I wasn’t drinking any water because I nearly did a spit-take when she answered that it was $22.

I was reminded of that story when I saw this advice column asking a bartender if $9 was too much to pay for a cocktail. The columnist answered that $9 is not too much, depending on what you get. She’s right. While I didn’t order that $22 cocktail, I have paid $9 — just not every day. The question is what’s the cut-off — where’s the dollar line between an expensive-but-still-good cocktail and highway robbery?

Many restaurants don’t list cocktail prices on their menus. At those restaurants you make an implicit bargain: I agree to order your high-mark-up booze and you agree to not make me feel like a fool when the bill comes. The problem is when restaurants don’t live up to their end of the bargain. In the advice column, the columnist was furious that she’d been charged $11 for a vermouth on the rocks that she had no idea cost that much.

I know the feeling. Once, I was sitting at the bar at a swanky steakhouse and asked the bartender for a gin & tonic. He told me he made a great variation and I said fine. I watched as he used the well gin and tossed in some other things and handed it to me. “What tab is that under?” he asked me. When I answered that I didn’t have a tab and was paying cash, he looked at me sheepishly and said, “Uhhh … that will be $16.” Lesson learned.

Besides sucking up your pride and asking about prices, you should also have some inkling of what you’re ordering. If you order a Scotch and the bartender says, “Dewars, Johnny Black or Johnny Gold?” you better know you’ll pay twice as much for the Johnny Walker Gold. As long as you’re willing to drop that kind of money, go for it. As for me, I’ll stick to my $12 maximum.