Bogart’s American Grill in Raleigh, N.C., is a joint much like you’d find across the U.S., with rib-eye steaks on the menu and a drink list of merlot, Miller beer and the kind of dry martinis Humphrey Bogart might have sipped.
And then there’s the newest house cocktail – a shot of vodka that soaks for days with hunks of Bubblicious bubble gum.
“It tastes just like the gum,” says manager Mary Shipley, who created that drink and another made of vodka soaked with Jolly Rancher green-apple and watermelon candies.
Bogart’s sells more than 3 gallons of the new concoctions every week.
Now that Americans have been through cosmopolitans, apple martinis and caipirinhas, what’s next? Ginger cosmopolitans, cucumber-apple martinis and carrot caipirinhas?
Actually, yes – those combinations and even weirder ones are popping up on menus across the country. After two years of strong liquor-sales growth, the spirits industry wants to keep the party going by making customers feel as if they have to try the next new thing.
Meanwhile, bars and restaurants, squeezed by higher wholesale food prices, are using attention-grabbing, pricey drinks to keep bar revenues high.
The bar at Ken Stewart’s Grille in Akron, Ohio, serves a $10 martini with a pickled baby octopus draped over the side.
On a recent evening at Vault Martini Bar in Portland, Ore., Jenni Tompkins ordered a Cherry Cheesecake drink that featured vodka, vanilla liqueur and cranberry juice. Her verdict: “It tastes like cough syrup.”
The manager, Kenny Stachovich, swapped it for a different drink but says the Cherry Cheesecake is very popular.
“People get bored with rum and Cokes,” he says.
The $49 billion U.S. spirits industry is banking on that.
Spirits consumption has grown for the past seven years and is forecast to jump another 4 percent this year, according to data from Adams Beverage Group.
Much of the increase in sales has been fueled by new products. Spirits companies introduced 53 flavored vodkas and 26 flavored rums in the past two years, up from 17 and 12, respectively, in 2002, according to the Distilled Spirits Council in Washington.
