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 Entertainment | Restaurants & Dining | December 2005 
Chicago Bar Serves Up 950 Dollar Cocktail
 Yahoo! News
| | Carmen Electra holds the 'Electra Paloma' cocktail at a bar in Los Angeles. A jeweler turned drink designer has made a splash in the Chicago bar scene with a new cocktail that costs a whopping 950 dollars. (AFP/Michael Buckner) |
A jeweler turned drink designer has made a splash in the Chicago bar scene with a new cocktail that costs a whopping 950 dollars.
The Ruby Red is a tangy mix of vodka, champagne, cognac, pomegranate liqueur and orange juice.
And it comes complete with a one-carat, grade-A ruby.
"We kind of were playing with an idea that someone could come in and have something to celebrate and remember the night by," said Pete Gugni, a manager at the trendy Reserve club in downtown Chicago.
Gugni said the club wanted to come up with something more memorable than opening a bottle of champagne.
"That's where the stone comes in - at the end of the night they can take it home."
Gugni spent a few years as a jeweler after he graduated from art school, but switched to managing a bar because he got bored sitting behind a desk all day.
He used his old connections to buy the cocktail gems wholesale, and says they can easily be turned into a ring, pendant or earrings.
So far, he has sold three.
The first was to an out-of-town businessman who quietly ordered it for the woman sitting with him at a table.
The next was a Reserve regular who bought one for his girlfriend.
The third was an extravagant club promoter in his 20s who bought it to impress a first date. The man made a big show of handing it to the woman and warned her to watch out for a surprise at the bottom of her martini glass.
"She was loving it," Gugni said. "All her friends were looking at it trying to see the stone."
Coming up with a recipe for the drink took a lot of experimenting behind the bar with the club's servers acting as a test market.
"We wanted to use pomegranate because it's hitting a popular trend with the antioxidants, and orange is really good with that," Gugni explained.
Dom Perignon champagne added a certain 'je-ne-sais-quoi', while using the Grey Goose orange vodka brought a smooth and silky kick.
"It's not a really heavy or sweet drink. It's got more of a tart taste."
Nobody has ordered the drink without the ruby yet. Gugni figures he would charge around 120 or 130 dollars for a gem-less Ruby Red, to cover the cost of uncorking the champagne.
But even at that price, they won't get the whole bottle - they just get a splash.
To make a Red Ruby, stir together these ingredients (the gemstone is optional):
- 1.5 ounces Grey Goose L'Orange vodka
- 0.5 ounce Hpnotiq cognac
- 0.5 ounce orange juice
- 0.25 ounce Pama (pomegranate) liqueur
- a splash Dom Perignon champagne |
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