There are cocktails. And then, there’s Revery’s Maven of Mayfair.’ So begins the press release announcing the arrival of ‘Mayfair’s most decadent cocktail’ in the Revery Bar at the Park Lane Hilton. Predictably, this is not decadence of your everyday: it will set you back £220.
For those of us navigating the choppy seas of the cost-of-living crisis who wish to recreate that desirable Mayfair decadence in the cost-effective comfort of our own homes, the Maven of Mayfair is constructed from foundations of Clase Azul Tequila and ‘rich and complex’ Grand Marnier. A ‘touch of floral elegance’ is supplied by Lillet Rose pink vermouth, while Italicus, a bergamot aperitif, ‘infuses a subtle hint of citrus and botanicals’. The ‘rare and exquisite’ Dom Pérignon Rosé may be used only ‘sparingly’, but nevertheless it imparts ‘a velvety effervescence’, and then for the ‘sumptuous final touch’ a sprinkle of edible gold. Oh, and only ‘a Baccarat crystal flute can be deemed worthy of its status’.
As well as causing me to wonder what disqualifies Saint-Louis, Daum or any other storied manufacturer of crystal glassware, I began to lose sleep over the fact that the brand of detergent with which the Baccarat crystal flute is washed was not specified. Indeed, lying awake during that ink-dark midnight of the soul, the mind is prey to all sorts of contiguous concerns. What sort of brand of mineral water (heated to the correct temperature – again unstated) is used in the ritual cleaning process? Can I be sure that each flute is hand-dried using the very finest Loro Piana linen?
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The ‘truly discerning’
When you come to think about it, this press release raises as many questions as it answers. But I suppose that this comes under the heading of ‘welcoming a new era of elegance’ and will be the subject of future communiqués.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something tells me I am not the target market – or as the Revery Bar would put it, one of the ‘truly discerning’ blessed with the exalted level of sophistication required to appreciate this concoction. And to be fair it does not help that I have not touched a drop of alcohol since 1997, which was way before the era of the mixologist.
The art of mixology
But putting my allergic reaction to alcohol to one side, the premium charged for the pleasure of having a variety of intoxicants placed into a single drinking vessel can, I suppose, be justified by the enjoyment of the theatre of their assembly. There is a sort of gymnastic pleasure to be found in watching what people of my generation describe as a cocktail barman go about his or her business: chucking bottles and utensils into the air like a juggler; making maraca gestures with the shaker; pyromaniacally tracing a long line of blue flame the length of the bar surface (I have seen that on social media so it must be true); twisting and folding a piece of citrus peel with the dexterity of an origami master; and finally, like a conjurer pulling a long-eared leporid out of a piece of formal headgear, producing from all this choreographed confusion an intoxicant more costly than the sum of its parts.
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As Thorstein Veblen, that Peter York of America’s Gilded Age, noted in The Theory of the Leisure Class, his canonical 1899 work, ‘The ceremonial differentiation of the dietary is best seen in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics. If these articles of consumption are costly, they are felt to be noble and honorific.’
Moreover, dear old Thorstein would have us believe that if the ingredients of your cocktail are costly enough, even the hangover has status-conferring qualities: ‘Drunkenness and the other pathological consequences of the free use of stimulants therefore tend in their turn to become honorific, as being a mark, at the second remove, of the superior status of those who are able to afford the indulgence.’
Although, if the VP of mixology at the Hilton Park Lane is reading this, I suggest that the leisure class of the 2020s would find their consciences much eased if they knew that the gold with which the Maven of Mayfair is dusted is ethically sourced, but I dare say that this information will be made available in due course. In the meantime, I find myself in a state of high anticipation awaiting the next bulletin from that home of the ‘truly discerning’, that bastion of a ‘new era of elegance’ the Revery Bar.
This feature was first published in Spear’s Magazine Issue 92. Click here to subscribe
