An $850 Miami Martini
Ounce for ounce, it's more expensive than the viral "Birkin Cocktail"
If you want to go somewhere with extreme shows of wealth and extremely hot weather, you have two choices: Dubai and Miami. The only difference, perhaps, is that Miami has more humidity and more alcohol consumption.
Take in point, the recent New York Post report of Miami Beach restaurant, Papi Steak, offering a $33,000 cocktail-in-a-Birkin bag. According to the story, the “It’s Not a Bag, It’s a Cocktail” is made from Belvedere 10 vodka, grapefruit oil saccharum, and Lillet Blanc with a peach garnish and side of caviar, served inside a Birkin bag. The name, of course, is a play on an old Sex and the City episode, where Samantha Jones tries to buy a Birkin, only to be told by a condescending sales associate, “It’s not a bag, it’s a Birkin”.
This cocktail comes from the people who serve a $1,000 steak in a briefcase and threw Tiffany Trump a birthday bash back in 2020. In other words, it’s a place where flash is the name of the game.
If you don’t want the orange leather handbag, the “It’s Not a Bag, it’s a Cocktail” costs $150 if you just feel like sipping and not schlepping.
If $150 seems like a dear price to pay for a few gulps of expensive vodka, may we present the newest drink to grace Miami: The $850 Vintage Vault Martini at Michelin-starred Cote Miami.
The cocktail is made with Chopin Vintage Vault, a vintage potato vodka from the brand's first release three decades ago, priced at $3,000 a bottle. The vodka, itself, can be considered the “Birkin” of spirits, since it can only be purchased by invitation, much like the Hermes bag. The precious liquid is paired with orange bitters and caviar. It is not served with any leather goods.
Considering an average martini is about three ounces of liquid, you’re talking $283 an ounce for Cote’s cocktail vs. a mere $50 per ounce for Papi Steak’s version (sans handbag).
There seems to be an expensive martini trend these days.
In New York, you’ll pay $250 for The Gold Room’s Reserve martini, made with Nolet’s Reserve Gin, and in San Francisco’s Empress by Boon, a saffron martini costs $150.
Truly, though, if you want a good martini, you don’t have to decide whether to make your car payment or drink at the bar.
At Cote Miami, for example, you can splurge on the $850 martini or you can enjoy its amazing house Vesper. Half Ketel One vodka and half Tanqueray gin, it’s served ice cold enough to give you that luscious brain freeze and strong enough to take your cares away on a Friday afternoon. And it’s only twenty bucks. A Miami bargain, for sure.