Bottle service offers a specific kind of vibe. It’s expensive and big, grandiose in a way that’s bordering on garish. It often comes with sparklers and always comes with mixers. Red Bull is a main character. As are rappers and velvet ropes, frat boys, bottle girls and Financial District miscreants. And it’s somehow always sticky.
But does bottle service have to be so bad?
At Nubeluz, chef Jose Andres’s sky-high cocktail bar in The Ritz-Carlton New York, NoMad, the bottle service isn’t boisterous or brash. Guests are presented with a curated list of vodkas, gins, whiskeys, rums, agave spirits, brandies and spirit-free bottles. Pick a bottle, list off your drink preferences and the bar team will create custom cocktails for you.
“We all know getting a bottle at a club is flashy and fun,” says Senior Beverage Manager Jopus Grevelink. “Sparklers, signs and Red Bull are what I think of when I picture getting a bottle at a nightclub.” But Nubeluz isn’t a nightclub — it’s a cocktail lounge with a party atmosphere. If they were going to do bottle service, it needed to match their energy, which is sophisticated revelry.
The Snow Lodge in Aspen, CO, serves Espresso Martinis in a mini keg, presented tableside. Guests can ski in and then pull a foamy, fluffy cocktail (made with Casa Dragones Tequila) from the tap. Those have become a staple at the mountainside hotspot. “People are here for it!” says the property’s founder and creative director, Jayma Cardoso. “Aspen après-ski is all about festivities, and these shareable experiences make it truly special for large groups. It’s not just a drink, it’s a vibe.”
That’s what the new guard of bottle service is leaning into: more grown-up drinking. Think better bottles, more thoughtful mixers and pinky’s up presentations. Partying with a capital P is still the point, but in a more elegant and elevated form.
Obvio, chef John Fraser’s new New York tequila bar, offers group cocktails via agave tray service, where agave spirits are served with fresh citrus, mixers and kitchen snacks to pair. Even party mecca Wynn Las Vegas has gussied up its bottle service. At Encore, their on-site pool club, pitchers of big drinks have a fancy cocktail lean. For example, the Cafe All Day is a large-format coffee cocktail made with vanilla vodka, Patrón XO Cafe and Fever-Tree Espresso Martini Mixer.
On the new-age side of the bottle service revival is Remedy Place, a New York “social wellness club” that has adopted bottle service but skips the alcohol. Guests can order 750mL bottles of water, the most expensive (collected from Amazonian rainforest moisture) running $155.
All of the above prove we’ve come a long way since bottle service started popping on the scene in the 1990s, when the famed NYC club Tunnel started roping off a section for VIPs. Big-name guests — models, actors and other arty-types — were allowed in, as were people who would pay high markups to hang out in their orbit. Now, high-end bottle service isn’t just about access and excess. It’s more about celebration and conviviality.
Why You Should Order a Split-Base Cocktail
Two spirits can and often should serve as the foundation of your drinkAt Hong Shing in Toronto, if you order a bottle of vodka (or maybe baijiu) off their bottle service menu, it arrives with a show — namely a Chinese parade, where your bottle will be brought out by lion dancers. Or they’ll pour the baijiu into a three-liter fountain of clarified Piña Coladas.
Grevelink finds that drinkers these days expect more than an overpriced bottle and a melange of mixers — they’re savvy. They want fresh juices and more thoughtful cocktails. “Why is it that if you order an expensive bottle of liquor, you only get to drink Gin & Tonics, Vodka Red Bulls or tequila sodas?” he asks. “We needed to provide our guests who are looking for a bottle a way to enjoy a more elevated yet less flashy bottle service.”
How do you build on something as simple as a bottle and a mixer? He gives guests access to a bottle list — one with Grey Goose and Tito’s, sure, but also Monkey 47, Gin Mare, Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask and Del Maguey Ibérico Mezcal. Once the bottle is picked, his team works to make custom drinks that match their vibe. A towering bottle of Clase Azul can be made into custom Margaritas or tequila Old Fashioneds. Top-shelf gins are made into Martinis.
Grevelink has had guests call ahead and pre-order bottles of Hendrick’s Gin and Altamura Vodka, popped in the freezer. Upon arrival, the icy spirits were poured into frosty Vespers. “We brought over Lillet and lemon peel to round it out,” he says.
While the Nubeluz beverage manager is all for the concept of bottle service, he finds his guests deserve better than cranberry juice and Casamigos. “I want our staff to ask, ‘For the next round of your bottle, do you want to try Oaxacan Old Fashioneds with your Casamigos?” Grevelink says.
“Do we still occasionally get guests that just want Bombay Sapphire and a liter of orange juice? Yes,” he adds. “I still love them, too. But I think when you spend exorbitant amounts of money on bottle service, I think your money should go further towards the quality of the drinks you receive.”
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