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The world’s most expensive cocktail!?!!
A recent post by Robert Hess on The Spirit World blog talks about his recent trip to Northern Ireland and specifically to the Merchant Hotel in Belfast. This sounds like the kind of bar that a Lounge Lizard would become weak in the knees over. Check out the bars menu and take your time … it’s one of the best I’ve seen in quite a while. On Page 26 you’ll see “The Connoisseurs’ Club: A classic experience for the discerning palate” which groups cocktails into “silver,” “gold” and “platinum” groupings depending on the ingredients used. There is one drink on the menu that has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “most expensive cocktail commercially available” not because it has a diamond floating at the bottom or is pricey for the sake of being pricey, this is a real, honest to goodness cocktail … it’s the Trader Vic’s Original Mai Tai costing 750 pounds (roughly $1,500) because it’s made with Wray & Nephew 17-year aged Jamaican rum of which there are only a few bottles left — one of which is in the spirits library of Trader Vic’s corporation and the other at the Merchant Hotel, which explains the pricetag.
Here’s the recipe the Merchant Hotel uses in the World’s most Expensive Cocktail …
Mai Tai Recipe
40 mls Wray & Nephew 17yr Rum; 10 mls Orange Curacao; 25 mls Freshly Squeezed Lime Juice; 10 mls Orgeat; 10 mls Rock Candy Syrup; 5 mls Sugar Syrup. Combine ingredients and shake and strain into a rocks glass, filled with cubed made with Fiji water (the purest water on earth) ice. Garnished with a lime wedge and fresh mint.
And if this has caught your interest, Forbes published a great story earlier in the year on the world’s most decadent cocktails which include the Ritz Sidecar from Bar Hemingway at the Hotel Ritz in Paris — birthplace of the sidecar cocktail. The former Guinness World Record holder for the most expensive cocktail has a $515 pricetag for the inclusion of a 1865 Ritz Reserve cognac from Napoleonic times. Compared to the new record holder, it seems like quite the deal. Had a cocktail you’ve enjoyed recently? Do share …
