Very quick stupid question

[Mouse]

(I dunno, feel free to ask your own questions too?)

How much does a glass of brandy cost? (In sterling) And, how much does a glass of sherry cost? (sterling, again).

I don't drink, I have no idea. I've googled it and that's been useless. I get how much a bottle costs, or how much an actual brandy glass costs but... urgh.

(Quick background - my character's in a bar in a hotel scamming a couple of ladies by doing a trick with a glass of brandy and a glass of sherry. I need to know how much, so that he can actually make money, not spend it all on the booze).

 

[Sapheron]

I'd go for between three and six pounds, generally, varying hugely based upon quality of the particular brand of drink, quality of the place serving it, what city you're in and god only knows what else. If you were in a particularly classy hotel/restaurant/whatever I imagine it could be much higher, maybe as much as ten pounds, but I don't know for sure because, as I suspect will be the case for many of us, I don't tend to go to particularly classy places.

 

[Mouse]

3-6 each? Or for both? It's a countryside hotel, not a mega posh one. Ta!

 

[AMB]

http://aqua-restaurant.com/bar/drinks

I would suggest looking at the cognac prices for the brandy.

 

[Glitch]

Found these links
http://www.jonandfernandas.co.uk/pdfs/drinks price list.pdf
http://www.carriagesitalianrestaurant.com/html/Bar Drinks Price List.html

 

[Mouse]

Blimey. Expensive, isn't it! Glad I don't drink.

Thanks, guys. Looks like my guy's going to have to up his price.

 

[Gumboot]

It wouldn't generally be a full glass either, but a specific measure, usually 30mL - i.e. a shot (from that price list Glitch provided it looks like a standard measure in the UK is 25mL, or 50mL for a double). Drinking spirits at a bar is extremely expensive...

 

[Venusian Broon]

It wouldn't generally be a full glass either, but a specific measure, usually 30mL - i.e. a shot (from that price list Glitch provided it looks like a standard measure in the UK is 25mL, or 50mL for a double).

Well you wouldn't get a shot of sherry - it's a usually a bit more i.e. a small glass - generally two standard measurements, 'cause it's fortified wine not a spirit.

You can also get establishments that serve 35ml as a standard spirit single - because, as I'm sure it wouldn't surprise you, us Scots historically drank spirits in 1/4 gills (~35ml) * . I haven't been in a Scottish pub in years so don't know if they've stopped doing that now.

Drinking spirits at a bar is extremely expensive...

Never mind spirits, drinking anything but tap water is extremely expensive in a UK pub. Supermarkets will sell you beer and lager at about 1/3rd the price of bar prices per volume and brand and perhaps even up to 1/5th of the price for bottles of spirits. At least that is London bar prices.

You can imagine what this is doing to the pub trade.

===========================================

* Well, 1/6 gill or 25ml barely covered the glass.

 

[Sapheron]

I thought that legally spirits have to be sold in pubs in multiples of 25ml in the UK now. Scotland may be different, but I don't think it is. Sherry and port are normally done in 75ml servings, I think, but I'm not sure.

Also, have to agree that drinking out in the UK is punishingly expensive. Three pounds at the pub for an ale, or four pounds at the shop for four. Damn you pub. Damn you.

 

[AMB]

It isn't the fault of the pubs (excepting maybe the ones that sell ale at upwards of £4/pint). I think it is government regulations and the fact that supermarkets use booze as a loss leader, so can afford to sell it much more cheaply.

MPs get their booze heavily subsidised by the tax payer. They have no interest in keeping down alcohol prices (plus, alcohol + the great unwashed = drinking problems that must be stopped).

 

[Venusian Broon]

I thought that legally spirits have to be sold in pubs in multiples of 25ml in the UK now. Scotland may be different, but I don't think it is. Sherry and port are normally done in 75ml servings, I think, but I'm not sure.

Also, have to agree that drinking out in the UK is punishingly expensive. Three pounds at the pub for an ale, or four pounds at the shop for four. Damn you pub. Damn you.

I definitely served 1/4 gills when I was working behind the bars and pubs of Edinburgh - although that was two decades ago, I'm sure I remember herds of triceratops walking past the windows as well...

Not the perfect place for information but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_spirits_measure

I think it's optional if you want to go for the bigger measure or not - but I can imagine if you're a bar manager and alot of your spirits go in with mixtures like coke, tonic or orange etc... then they probably want to go with the smaller measure so that they can squeeze more drinks out of the bottle and sell the (probably) more dramatically expensive soft drinks (compared with how cheap they are in supermarkets as well).

AMB - all pubs, as far as I can tell, in London sell, even your bog standard 'cooking' lagers or light 'quaffing' beers and ales at about £4. And for some high class bars and clubs in the posh parts of town, you'd probably need the ok from your bank manager before proceeding.

 

[Bowler1]

Pubs are closing down left right and centre while betting shops open up all the time. Is this right?

I've recently seen a bottle of wine (ok, I did try it and it wasn't bad) in a offy for £4! (3 for a tenner I think, but I only got the one) How are pubs going to be able to fight that?

Lastly, there is nothing better than a good brandy/whiskey. I once paid £25 for an after dinner brandy x 2, one for my mate as well, and it was wonderful - yummy! So we had another, and were very drunk afterwards, which was just as well, being £100 lighter after those drinks. A rare treat, but the difference in quality really played and danced happily across my taste buds.

 

[Lenny]

Most of the bars I went to in Durham served 35ml shots as standard, and would also do 25ml if you requested it. I'm not sure if they were legally obliged to, but the ones that sold 35ml as standard also had signs up saying that their shots were 35ml.

 

[sknox]

Are you talking modern prices? As in an urban fantasy? Because if it's in earlier times, you'll want to make an adjustment. And if it's pure fantasy, you can make up whatever price you want.

 

[Ursa major]

Speaking of the historical price of brandy....

In the summer of '76, I worked in the off-licence section of a hotel that was changing hands, mostly getting the bar paperwork up to date, because the old gentleman I was helping had been away ill for a few months. The mark-up was lowest on the beer (never more than double the wholesale cost), next highest on the spirits (about four times wholesale) and the highest on soft drinks and mixers (I can't recall the various mark-ups, but they were huge).

As they were clearing the cellars (whether in line with the contract of sale or not, I don't know), they discovered a bottle of 1910 Napoleon brandy. Not much was left (I assume the bottle was used to provide individual drinks in the hotel's restaurant), but we were each given a small sample of it. Absolutely wonderful. And for free. (I speak as someone who rarely drank alcohol then, and doesn't drink it now.)

 

[HareBrain]

For reasons too complicated (and too sordid) to go into, I once had a glass from a bottle of very exclusive brandy blended from various vintages, the oldest of which I believe was from the first half of the nineteenth century. The bottle cost about £2000, so the (very large) glass must have cost hundreds -- and I drank it after a curry! It might as well have been Tesco's Value.

Anyway, that's the only brandy story I have, so to get back on topic, £4.75.

 

[Sally Ann Melia]

In Surrey, which is as close London as bears no difference, prices hover between £5 - £10.


In top luxury bars, you can xpect to pay anything upto £10,000 or more for a bottle of vintage spirits, even upto £35,000 for a rare vintage of champagne.

If you are including the price in a story, it is good to remember the price your character pays and their reaction to said prices defines them as people.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

If you are including the price in a story, it is good to remember the price your character pays and their reaction to said prices defines them as people.

Very good point! It reminded me of something that happened years ago, on one of my other boards -- a mom's board for babies born the same month as mine. There was a woman on there who posted her tremendous outrage over an incident at the pharmacy. She had gone in for her migraine pills, and the pharmacist (or clerk) asked her if she wanted the entire prescription filled at once. Turns out the pills cost over $100 each. She was outraged that they would assume she couldn't pay for the whole thing at once -- four pills, I believe. She ranted and raved about "what do they think I look like" and was most upset. To me, it sounded like a perfectly reasonable question from the pharmacist -- if I went in for four pills and discovered it was going to cost $400, I guarantee you I would be upset at that! So yes, reactions are everything -- prices are not the same to different people.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Can I steal Mouse's thread (I'll put it back) and ask a stupid question? This character has just taken a bit of sea foam and then:


She licked it and it tasted like dulse, so salty it made you wince and then want more.


A. does anyone know what dulse* is?
B. could anyone guess what it is without knowing?
C. And, if neccessary (ie you're all scratching your heads), can you think of getting in a way of saying it's seaweed when the pov character would only think of it as dulse and not seaweed.


*A very acquired taste is the answer. You have to start eating it as a five year old and be forced into thinking it's a seaside treat. At some point, you will realise it isn't, yet you'll still buy it when you're at the seaside. A bizarre thing.

 

[Abernovo]

I think you know I know what it is. Didn't know about selling it in seaside resorts, though. Just ate it as a side dish, growing up.

Could you compare it to the wrack on the beach? Especially if it's the rotting stuff that's been out in the sun all day? Actually, fried wrack isn't that bad, so long as it's fresh harvested.