Fifteen years behind the bar teaches you a lot. You learn people, you learn patience, and most importantly, you learn exactly where the money goes when someone slides a card across the counter. Some drinks are worth every cent. Others? Honestly, you’d be better off buying the bottle yourself and saving a small fortune.
According to experts speaking to VinePair, drinks are nearly 40% more expensive than they were in the early 2010s, with the cost of going out for the night becoming nearly untenable. That’s a staggering number. So before you order your next round, you might want to read what someone who actually made these drinks for a living has to say. Let’s dive in.
1. The Long Island Iced Tea
Let’s be real – the Long Island Iced Tea is the poster child for bad value at a bar. While cocktails made with many different ingredients can sound enticing, ordering them at the wrong bar can make for nothing more than a bad decision, and bar manager Alisha Kaplan has noted that Long Island iced teas are “often inconsistent and of poor quality.” The problem is almost structural.
The Long Island Iced Tea is famous for containing not one or two, but four potent liquors, and a liqueur to boot. That sounds like value, doesn’t it? Except in practice, most bars fill this thing with well spirits – bottom-shelf stuff – and charge you a premium price for the privilege. A Long Island might be a common drink order, but that doesn’t mean everyone knows how to make it well. In fact, because of the many additions, it’s often made very inconsistently, so you never know what you’re going to get.
2. Wine by the Glass
I’ve watched people order house wine by the glass thousands of times, and I always feel a small pang of guilt. For by-the-glass wine, bars typically aim to recoup the entire bottle cost in the first glass poured – a five-ounce pour – making the remaining four glasses pure profit. A twenty-dollar bottle becomes a twenty-dollar-plus glass. That is not a typo.
Most wine drinkers have had the experience of seeing a wine they’re familiar with on a restaurant menu that costs $45 on the menu but retails for $15 at the local wine shop. Industry standards for wine bottle markups are generally said to be around 2.5 to 3 times the wholesale price. By the glass, the math gets even worse. 2024 was the year of sticker shock, with cocktail prices hitting $20 in many major cities and bottles that used to be $50 hiked up to $90 on restaurant lists. Ordering wine by the glass is, honestly, one of the least efficient ways to spend your bar budget.
3. The Espresso Martini
The espresso martini is having its moment, and bars know it. Espresso Martini consumption increased from 2% to 15% in 2024, which means bars have every reason to charge whatever they like for it. Trendy drinks command trendy prices, and this one has become a cash cow.
Here’s the thing: the actual ingredients are inexpensive. You’re looking at vodka, coffee liqueur, and a shot of espresso. That’s it. Because cocktails combine low ingredient costs with high perceived value, a cocktail that costs $2.50 to produce can retail for $14 to $18, resulting in margins that outperform beer, wine, and even most spirits. The espresso martini sits squarely in that category, dressed up by Instagram aesthetics and the current coffee-culture obsession. Storytelling sells – guests pay more for a cocktail with a name, a story, and a garnish. The espresso martini has all three.
4. Premium Bottled Beer
Ordering a premium bottled craft beer at a bar feels good. It feels considered. Sophisticated, even. The reality is slightly less glamorous. Bottled and canned beer typically get a three to four times markup at bars, with craft and specialty beers pushing even further to four or five times the wholesale cost. You’re paying for the label as much as the liquid.
Bottled beer tends to have the lowest profit margin for a bar due to the nature in which they buy the beer – they are paying for extra packaging costs and material, making it the least efficient way to serve from a strictly financial perspective. Yet they still manage to extract a solid markup from you. In 2024, beer faced both value and volume declines, yet prices at bars kept climbing. You could buy a six-pack at retail, drink two at home, and be further ahead financially before you’ve even left your apartment.
5. The Frozen Margarita
Nothing says “summer” like a frozen margarita. Nothing says “watch your wallet” quite like one either. The frozen version of this classic drink carries an absurd markup because it looks elaborate, requires specialized equipment, and can be pre-batched in enormous quantities that cost bars almost nothing per serving. I’ve seen operations run these machines on margins that would make your eyes water.
Bars typically achieve 70 to 85 percent gross profit margins on cocktails, making mixed drinks among the most profitable items on any menu. A cocktail that costs $2.50 to make and sells for $12 generates nearly 80 percent margin. A frozen margarita, pre-batched by the gallon, often costs even less to produce. The standard liquor markup in bars is around 400 to 500 percent – the highest of all types of alcohol. The frozen margarita weaponizes that markup behind a swirl of icy color and a salted rim that cost them 3 cents.
6. The Mocktail
I know this one is controversial in 2026, especially as the sober-curious movement has genuinely changed the drinking landscape. About 41% of Americans are trying to drink less in 2024, which is a 7% increase from 2023. Bars have responded by creating elaborate non-alcoholic menus – which is wonderful – but the pricing is often wildly disconnected from what’s actually in the glass.
The rise in demand for craft non-alcoholic cocktails has pushed bars to charge more, and as a result, even mocktail costs have been bumped up to be nearly in line with the cost of any other craft cocktail. Think about that for a second. You’re paying $14 to $18 for juice, soda, herbs, and a fancy garnish, with zero alcohol in it. While food service typically achieves 30 to 40 percent margins, well-managed bars maintain 75 to 80 percent gross margins on alcoholic beverages – and mocktails, with their even cheaper ingredient costs, can push that even higher. The wellness premium is real, and it’s coming out of your pocket.
7. The Signature “Theatrical” Cocktail
You’ve seen them on Instagram. The drinks with the smoke dome, the flaming garnish, the edible glitter, and the $22 price tag. Bars have gotten extremely good at selling experience, and I respect the hustle. But here’s what I know from the other side of the bar: the theatrics cost almost nothing to produce, and they justify some truly breathtaking markups.
From alcoholic drinks served in quirky vessels like tiki mugs or glasses shaped like lightbulbs, to those presented with dramatic flair like dry ice or smoke bubbles, creative presentations are a major trend – it’s all about turning a drink into an experience. The core spirit in that smoky, spectacular glass is often the same well vodka or mid-shelf rum you’d get in a basic cocktail for half the price. Bars have stepped up to meet elevated consumer demands by hiring renowned mixologists, crafting complicated drinks with 20 different ingredients, and splurging on top-shelf booze, not to mention in-house infusions and handmade garnishes. Some of that investment is real. Often, it’s theater with a price tag to match.
8. Shots of Premium Spirits
Ordering a round of top-shelf shots feels celebratory in the moment. It is, without question, one of the most expensive ways to consume alcohol at a bar. The standard liquor markup in bars is around 400 to 500 percent – the highest of all types of alcohol – and that’s the reason high-volume nightclubs that sell a lot of shots are some of the most profitable establishments in the hospitality industry. Every shot is a tiny gold rush for the house.
Sales in premium spirit categories were dropping – the $100+ tier had fallen 8.5% year-over-year in 2024, while the $50–$99.99 tier fell 4.3% – which means even consumers are starting to push back on the premium spirit premium. Still, bars price these pours aggressively. The average drink costs between $1 and $3 for a bar to make – and that’s exactly why liquor markup in bars is so profitable. That $12 shot of aged tequila cost the bar roughly $2 to pour. It’s not personal; it’s business. But at least now you know.
