World's priciest mulled wine: would you pay £60?
The world's most expensive mulled wine has gone on sale at Searcys - the champagne bar in St Pancras station in London. A glass of it will set you back an incredible £60 - but can mulled wine ever really be worth so much?
Why so pricey?
The bar is making a great deal of the quality of the ingredients. The drink - called Cinnamoney Spiced Wine - contains a fine Bordeaux, Ch{C}ampagne, French cider and dessert wine - along with the usual spices. The man behind the drink is the respected food and drink writer Matthew Fort, which would seem to indicate that this isn't a gimmick designed to create headlines, but the kind of drink that a man with a good reputation is willing to put his name to.
You could easily assume that these fine and sophisticated flavours are going to be destroyed with the addition of the spices and the traditional mulling over a low heat for hours. However, the spicing is said to be subtle, and the drink isn't really mulled at all, it's made to order. In effect it's a very expensive Christmassy cocktail, which contains some of the flavours of a mulled wine.
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Is it worth it?
There's clearly a market for this kind of thing, and there's a constant stream of headlines claiming the 'world's most expensive...' food and drink. In September this year, a ludicrous cocktail called the Gigi's was created by Gigi's restaurant. It included vintage champagne and an ultra-rare cognac - and cost £8,888. It was created for Grace Jones at the opening of the bar.
Meanwhile, over in the world of food, in October this year Honky Tonk, a restaurant in Chelsea, unveiled the world's most expensive burger priced at £1,100 (although in this instance it was a publicity stunt and the burgers weren't sold). It contained Wagyu beef, lobster and caviar.
Meanwhile, in April this year a Canadian chef announced the world's most expensive pizza at $450. It was topped with rare seafood including Lobster Thermidor, tiger prawns and caviar. And last December we had the world's most expensive ready meal - costing £314.16 and containing champagne, lobster and scallops.
The question of whether any of these are worth the money depends on whether you are a firm believer in using really expensive drinks in order to make up a cocktail, and incredibly expensive beef to produce a burger, or whether you'd rather have the expensive stuff in a simpler form which allows you to appreciate the flavour more clearly.
But what do you think? Are you happy using perfectly average wine for your mulled wine, and topping your pizzas with seething more traditional - or are you tempted by these fancier and pricier versions?
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