At US$230 a glass, it’s the most expensive cocktail in Hong Kong. Is the Sazerac from the Regent hotel’s Qura Bar worth the money?
- Hong Kong is no stranger to super-expensive food and drinks: a US$1,400 dinner, a US$141,000 truffle and numerous high-end wines and Cognacs
- The newly opened Qura Bar in the Regent Hong Kong hotel is selling a Sazerac cocktail for an eye-watering US$230, and we at the Post just had to try it
Hongkongers rarely get sticker shock when it comes to expensive items. After all, we paid the record price for a 1kg white truffle – US$141,000. Gaddi’s, in The Peninsula Hong Kong, held a dinner in 2021 priced at HK$10,888 (US$1,400) per person.
Now Qura Bar, newly opened at the Regent Hong Kong hotel, is selling a cocktail that costs HK$1,800 per glass.
It also has a number of high-end wines available by the glass, such as 2012 Château Figeac, a Saint-Émilion Bordeaux, at HK$580 a go.
Vintage cocktails on the bar’s menu start at HK$1,250 for a Negroni and go up to the Sazerac, at HK$1,800 the most expensive.
Dating back to 1838, the Sazerac cocktail was trademarked by the Sazerac Company in 1900. Antoine Amédée Peychaud, a pharmacist from Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), is credited with its creation.
After relocating to New Orleans in the United States, Peychaud began mixing his eponymous bitters with brandy, sugar, and water, and initially marketed his drink as a health tonic. The cocktail’s popularity grew beyond its medicinal origins, becoming a celebrated drink.
Caviar is on everything, everywhere, all at once in Hong Kong – but why?
In 2008 the Sazerac was declared the official cocktail of New Orleans, cementing its long association with the Southern US city.
The drink was originally made with Sazerac de Forge et Fils Cognac, a French brandy, but, especially in the United States, rye whiskey was used as a substitute.
The recipe for the Sazerac has evolved to include absinthe and usually lemon or orange peel for a garnish.
The version at Qura Bar is made with Cognac – a 1969 Vallein Tercinier L’Erotique LOT 69 Grande Champagne Cognac. The Vallein Tercinier family has been in the Cognac region of western France for 500 years, but only became winemakers in 1791 when they bought the Domaine des Forges estate. They started producing brandy in 1850.
A bottle of 1969 Vallein Tercinier L’Erotique Cognac costs about HK$4,500.
The menu at Qura Bar was designed by Proof, which provides selected spirits to hotels and restaurants, as well as menu consultancy services, and whose clients include big players such as global hospitality group Marriott Bonvoy.
As we watch bar manager Gennaro Pucci wash a glass with absinthe and ice, expertly mix our Sazerac and add an orange twist, the simple appearance of the glass seems an anticlimax for such an exclusive cocktail. But then we give it a sip.
The texture is smoother than that of any other cocktail we’ve sampled, with a finish so long it feels like the drink is talking to us. The bitters and absinthe hang at the back of the palate as if waiting for the floral notes of orange and Cognac to pass before coming onto the palate to punctuate the sip, leaving you wanting more.
We advise you to not order any of the bar snacks – which include house-made goose rillette, and Iberico ham with tomato bread – when you order the vintage Sazerac. You do not want any other flavours messing with this drink.
We were left with the flavours of a warm orange biscuit at the back of our throat as we made our way home wondering if the experience of drinking Qura Bar’s vintage Sazerac is worth HK$1,800.
We know that Tiffany’s New York Bar down the road at the Intercontinental Grand Stanford hotel serves an off-menu Sazerac for HK$138; is the one at Qura Bar really worth 13 of them?
Maybe not 13, but how about five or six?
