These are the world's most expensive cocktails

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Think that $20 cocktail you're sipping is pricey? Bars and restaurants around the world have upped the ante, offering ridiculous cocktails made with rare, high-end spirits. Consider these your once-in-a-lifetime libations.

Aficionados rarely use top-shelf booze on mixed drinks. If you were lucky enough to score a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 12 Year, chances are you dropped several thousand bucks on the opportunity to sip it neat—maybe with an ice cube or two. But bartenders and beverage directors at upscale restaurants and bars around the world are finding ways to incorporate rare, expensive bottles of whiskey, cognac, rum, and other spirits into astronomically priced cocktails. It's a thrilling indulgence—if you can stomach the pricetag. Starting at about $50 and ranging into the thousands, here are some of the most over-the-top cocktails that (a lot of) money can buy:

Bourgeois Pig at The Rickey ($50)

The Rickey/Yelp

The Rickey, a new bar on the ground floor of the Dream Midtown hotel in New York City, has a cocktail menu curated by mixologist Johnny Swet. A favorite is the Bourgeois Pig, a $50 truffle martini with vodka, dry vermouth, bacon elixir, rosemary bitters, and the ingredient that sends it over the top: a piece of shaved black truffle. Swet uses the French Perigord truffle, specifically, which he considers the finest.

 

Balmoral at Beautique ($80)

Beautique Dining

Celebrity playpen restaurant Beautique, located across from NYC's Plaza Hotel, is often visited by actors, musicians, and models who come for the food and stay for an after-dinner visit to the nightclub tucked in the back. Here they find the Balmoral, an $80 cocktail created by wine director Brett Mendl. This drink is similar to a Manhattan, but it's made with The Macallan Rare Cask, stirred with just a touch of dry and sweet vermouth. "Using a high-end whiskey in a cocktail will always create a smoother drink with less alcohol burn and generally less of a hangover," Mendl says. It will also jack up the price, but the results are pretty impressive—this is a cocktail where you can taste what the quality spirit adds to it.

 

Jet Set Manhattan at Tavern on 51 ($100)

Tavern on 51/Yelp

Tavern on 51 is one of several ritzy drinking establishments in the Lotte New York Palace hotel. (Another? Rarities, where one can order a dram of whiskey for a few thousand dollars.) At Tavern on 51, the Jet Set Manhattan, made with Michter's 20 Year Single Barrel Bourbon and vintage Taylor Fladgate 1985 Port, will only set you back $100. Justin Lorenz, director of wine and beverage for Rarities, sums up the one-percenter appeal nicely: "For someone who has it all, the subtle nuances experienced from the use of these rare [spirits] simply have no substitute."

 

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