Bottle service is the sale of
liquor
Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or hard ...
by the bottle in mostly North American
lounges and nightclubs.
The purchase of bottle service typically includes a
reserved table for the
patron's party and
mixers of the patron's choice. Bottle service can include the service of a
VIP host, who will ensure that patrons have sufficient mixers and will often make drinks using the patrons' liquor bottle and mixers. The purchase of bottle service sometimes results in
cover charge being waived for the purchaser's party and often allows patrons to bypass entrance lines. The gratuity is also often added automatically but portions of that go to security, porters, back of the house staff in addition to the VIP host who serves the patron.
The cost of a bottle at such a lounge or club is usually significantly
marked up, often by 1,000 percent or more, and can account for a significant portion of an establishment's revenue.
History
Early forms of bottle service existed in World War II era
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
,
where unfinished bottles would be stored. In its modern form, an early example was in 1988 at the Paris nightclub Les Bains Douches, bottle service was introduced to deal with an excess of customer demand.
An early, inexpensive form of bottle service ($90, compared with $6 drinks) was established at the
Tunnel in New York City in 1993 (by Jeffrey Jah and Mark Baker). The modern form of bottle service was pioneered in 1995 by Michael Ault at Spy Bar and in 1996, Chaos ($175 for a bottle of
Stolichnaya vodka
Stolichnaya (russian: Столичная) is a vodka made of wheat and rye grain. It is a well-known Soviet brand. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union the ownership of Stolichnaya has been disputed between the Russian state-owned compan ...
),
with the goal of creating a "barrier to entry", rather than of increasing liquor sales.
The concept later spread to other American cities, notably
Miami and
Las Vegas in the early 2000s.
Criticism
The cost of bottle service and the central position provided to purchasers of bottle service has led some critics to complain that bottle service is turning night clubs into
elitist
Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people perceived as having an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, power, notability, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constr ...
dens.
Preferential treatment for purchasers of bottle service may include stopping the regular dance music when an especially expensive bottle is purchased and, instead, playing a theme song, or removing patrons from a table to make way for another patron and their party that purchased bottle service.
See also
*
Conspicuous consumption
In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen co ...
References
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Nightlife
Drinking culture