Ever wonder why that drink was so pricey?
It’s the ice, ice, baby.
New York bars are adding extra fees along with the extra ice in your glass.
Murray Hill bars Joshua Tree and Mercury Bar — along with Midtown’s McFadden’s — all charge extra for a whiskey on the rocks.
McFadden’s rang up the most expensive at $2.
“Ice is to a cocktail like a stove is to a chef,” bartender and mixology blogger Pamela Wiznitzer, 26, said. Wiznitzer blamed ice machines, which can cost bars up to $5,000. “It’s going to make a more expensive drink.”
East Village speakeasy Death & Co. has three ice machines, in addition to a freezer, and charges more than $10 for a drink.
Amanda Rensch, manager of Joshua Tree, didn’t raise an eyebrow at the upped prices. “Anything on the rocks is a dollar extra,” she told Metro. “Most of the bars around here do it.”
New Yorkers haven’t exactly warmed to the idea.
“That is so ridiculous!” said Gramercy application analyst Amanda Martin, 25. “I don’t imagine they’re hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro to get it, you know? Pull it out of the freezer.”
But lawyer Gregory Frank, 31, wasn’t fazed. “It’s funny when people complain they are overpaying for ice when they have been overpaying for the whiskey for years. What’s the difference?”
