Emily Christian: I am at the Baccarat Hotel in
New York City.
Yes, that's Baccarat as in the luxury French crystal brand.
So everything from the hotel to the bar
is decked out in crystals.
But the pièce de résistance is a $5,000 cocktail,
served in Baccarat crystal.
I'm here today to find out why this cocktail
warrants this enormous price tag.
It tastes like a cherry.
Antoine Hodge: It tastes like a cherry.
My visit would be guided by Antoine Hodge,
the head mixologist and inventor of the drink
aptly named L'Imperial.
I created this cocktail.
It was inspired by the Tsar Glass.
And it was named after the last tsar of Russia,
Nicholas II.
So when I heard "last tsar,"
I thought of the last word cocktail.
To do a classic riff on that with high-end ingredients,
to kind of respect the glass,
and the history, and all of that.
And it started there.
Antoine it's wonderful to meet you.
Hello, pleasure. Thank you so much
for having us here today. Antoine: Of course.
I'm wondering right off the bat
what makes this drink so special?
So what makes this drink so special,
first of all, is the glass.
So you get a $3,600 glass takeaway.
Oh, to take home with you?
So you do get a souvenir, with you.
Wow.
But also the components that go into it,
the spirits that we use, are very rare and exclusive.
So all the value is in the glass and in these spirits.
So this drink, the glass is $3,600?
Antoine: Yes.
And that's starting to make more sense to me
why the drink itself is $5,000.
But you're still drinking $1,400.
So you must have some really nice spirits here.
So what we're about to see in the $5,000 cocktail
is a very rare Chartreuse that we've acquired,
that you won't see anywhere else.
We've tried, we've looked for it.
We've only found one bottle of this particular age.
So as far as you're concerned,
here you are the sole owners of this year of Chartreuse.
This is the one bottle available in the world
as far as you can find?
Antoine: Yes.
And you're letting me have some?
Antoine: Yes. Yikes.
What makes this year of this Chartreuse so special?
It is a last word cocktail and this Chartreuse
is from the same era when this classic
last word cocktail was invented.
This is a 100-year-old bottle of alcohol.
Antoine: Yes.
And it holds up?
Emily: The recipe for Chartreuse originated 500 years ago
in 1605, when a monastery in France
received an alchemist's manuscript for a mysterious elixir.
The recipe called for a blend of 130 different herbs
that would form a perfect tonic.
Over the years they adapted
what was known as the Elixir of Long Life
into what we know as Green Chartreuse.
To this day, the precious recipe is known only
by two monks who oversee the distillery
and use its profits to continue the work of their monastery.
In 1901 the monks who make Chartreuse
were actually ousted out of France
and they had to make their Chartreuse
in Spain.
So this Chartreuse is from when
they were making it in Spain.
Antoine: Yes. 100 years ago.
Antoine: Which makes it even more rare.
It's exile Chartreuse. Antoine: Exile Chartreuse.
The monks were all about sharing
so with the philosophy that we have,
we wanted to crack open the bottle and make a cocktail
to be able to share it with everyone.
So you aren't just keeping it on a shelf,
we're actually enjoying it.
We want people to enjoy it, yeah, of course.
Yeah, well I really hope that I like it.
How strong is this alcohol?
It's strong, but you'll get a lot of sweetness
to counteract that as well.
But if you drank a lot of it, how strong is it?
You know what I mean?
You'll feel it.
The price for one ounce would be $1,150.
Emily: The L'Imperial cocktail contains
one whole ounce of the 1920 Chartreuse.
This vintage of Chartreuse is so rare
that once the bottle is gone, it's gone for good.
Amazingly I had the opportunity to try
a small taste of this spirit right from the bottle.
(exhaling)
100 years of history.
Preserved in this glass.
I would give it a swirl, give it a sniff.
I put it in the snifter just so
you can kind of smell it first
to get yourself ready.
Antoine: It's intense.
It's a powerful smell.
Antoine: You're gonna get a strong sense of tarragon,
and the savory note would lead you to maybe peppercorn.
What do you think? Ooh.
It's delicious!
It's very good. Antoine: Yes.
The smell was so strong I was worried
that I would be overcome, but it's so easy to drink.
Very easy to drink, very smooth,
it has a nice viscous texture to it.
And the sweetness, the bitterness, the aromatics,
all of it is in a nice warm presentation.
It's warm.
Antoine: It's very warming.
- And when you mentioned baking spices it does,
it tastes like very comfortable, very warming.
Like you're drinking a baked good.
Like maybe a spice cake or something like that.
Emily: The time had come to truly see
what goes into this extravagant drink.
In addition to the 100-year-old Chartreuse
the L'Imperial is made with top shelf gin,
cherry oak aged maraschino liqueur, lime juice,
and of course, a golden cherry on top.
My version of the cocktail included an ounce
of Baccarat's standard issue Chartreuse.
Antoine assured me that this would be
a similar tasting experience, and I knew that
any more Chartreuse from the 100 year old bottle
was better off preserved for true connoisseurs.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh!
I would definitely use both hands.
Oh yeah, I mean I'm very nervous to pick this up.
And I was thinking, okay, how can a glass
look like $3,600, and then you put this in front of me.
And it's all become, no pun intended,
but very crystal clear.
Emily: What should I be tasting in this cocktail?
Antoine: So you're gonna taste a little bit
of the baking spice that you have,
the gin adds a little bit of aromatics as well.
Emily: All these ingredients are used
to really boost up the Chartreuse.
All right, hm.
Hm.
Okay.
Yes.
Woo.
Mm.
It's wonderful! What do you think?
It's delicious.
It has all the flavors of the Chartreuse.
But it just feels more fun to me, you know what I mean?
Yeah, it's not as constricting and heavy.
It actually brings it out, it's light and refreshing.
I feel like if you're here to spend $5,000
on a cocktail you're here to have a really good time.
Antoine: You're here to enjoy it. Emily: Yes.
And this drink is enjoyable from start to finish.
It's not one of those drinks that you drink
and you're kinda like (throat clearing).
It's certainly the best drink I've ever had.
I'm gonna have another sip,
and I'm gonna go with more confidence this time.
Our final tally for the L'Imperial Cocktail
comes out to $3,600 for a souvenir Baccarat crystal glass.
And $1,150 for an ounce of 100-year-old Green Chartreuse.
Leaving $250 for other top shelf ingredients
and expert craftsmanship.
A grand total of $5,000 for a bar-goer's
ultimate cocktail splurge.
It was a fun experience to eat it.
You have gold in your teeth. Oh no.
Well, I'll be here.