$16 for a cocktail? Nashville drink prices soar The price of a cocktail is on the rise in Nashville's exploding food scene

Lizzy Alfs | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption Christopher Weber, co-owner of Hemingway's Bar & Hideaway makes a "Steve McQueen" Christopher Weber, co-owner of Hemingway's Bar & Hideaway makes a "Steve McQueen"

Inside the trendy, year-old Henley in Midtown, bartenders expertly craft drinks made with unusual ingredients like foie gras butter, barrel aged pineapple shrub, sprouted coconut and dandelion.

But all those fancy ingredients come with a high price tag.

The drink with the foie gras butter, which is combined with a rum aged seven years in ex-bourbon barrels, will cost you $16.

Just a few years ago, craft cocktails priced that high would have shocked Nashville diners, but $16 drinks have become commonplace in the city’s exploding food scene. Husk, Black Rabbit and Sunda are among the venues with $16 cocktails on their menus.

Across the city, bartenders — aka mixologists — are crafting unique drinks using high-end spirits, local produce, homemade syrups and bitters, and even hand-carved ice. Consumers are shelling out more money as a result.

A search of Nashville menus shows the average for artisan cocktails right now is in the $12 to $14 range.

“I think it’s risky in a lot of ways, but I think things are changing as far as quality of ingredients with a lot of these craft cocktails people are doing and the methods they are using to make them,” said Q-Juan Taylor, a partner at Sinema on 8th Avenue South. “If you’re building these products and trying to make your margins, sometimes you have to take those chances and increase your price.”

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Nashville’s artisan cocktail movement trailed that of major metropolitan areas like New York and San Francisco. Strategic Hospitality’s Patterson House opened on Division Street in 2009, almost a decade after the influential, speakeasy-style bar Milk & Honey debuted in New York. Holland House followed in 2010 in East Nashville.

Today, Music City is home to dozens of places showcasing high-end drinks, from exclusive New York-based speakeasy Attaboy to Edgehill favorite Old Glory. Most new restaurants opening in Nashville include a cocktail program.

The craft cocktail trend swept the country over the past decade and has helped fuel record sales in the spirits industry. Supplier sales rose $1 billion last year to a new high of $26.2 billion, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.

The organization does not track data on cocktail prices.

“In general, many cocktails today are being crafted by master mixologists using super premium spirits, fresh ingredients and infusions,” said Frank Coleman, senior vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council. “In many restaurants, the dining experience is built around the cocktail menus, which draw in consumers seeking new, craft recipes and flavors. It’s not your grandfather or grandmother’s Old Fashioned or Gin and Tonic using rail pour spirits.”

Indeed, cocktails are taking center stage at many restaurants and consumers are even enjoying them with dinner, in lieu of wine, said Christopher Weber, co-owner of Hemingway’s Bar & Hideaway, a cocktail bar and restaurant on Houston Street.

Hemingway’s prices many of its drinks at $13, but it also has a separate “Captain’s List” menu with five specialty drinks that cost $15. The bar turns out 500 to 1,000 cocktails on a weekend.

But what actually goes into the cost of those drinks? Probably more than you would think.

The price is a careful calculation of ingredients, tools, labor and the time needed to make the drink. But Weber also has to consider rent, the cost of menus, parking costs, taxes and more.

Weber said he needs to keep the pour cost of his cocktails in the 17 to 20 percent range for it to be profitable. For instance, the bar’s top-selling “Steve McQueen” cocktail costs $2.23 to make and the consumer pays $13. So the drink has a roughly 17 percent pour cost and the remainder can go toward the state’s liquor-by-the-drink tax and expenses associated with operating a restaurant/bar.

Weber said diners in Nashville are willing to pay $13 or even $15 for a well-made craft cocktail. He said about 30 to 40 percent of repeat guests order off the $15 Captain’s List menu.

“It sold astronomically better than I thought. If we have a table of five people, at least one of those is going to get a $15 dollar drink,” he said.

Reach Lizzy Alfs at lalfs@tennessean.com or 615-726-5948 and on Twitter @lizzyalfs.