I am downhearted. Dejected. Disconsolate.
For two years, I’ve been thinking about a glass of Louis XIII.
Louis Treize, as it is casually known, is the most expensive liqueur in the world. Painstakingly crafted from up to 1,200 types of eau de vie — brandies, some up to 100 years old — it is said to be a peerless and endlessly enchanting blend of the finest varieties in the land. People who are good at this sort of thing are said to be able to detect notes of 250 different flavors in it: fruits, leather, jasmine, honey, nutmeg, sandlewood, saffron and more.
Its fans say it is a singular achievement in the art of making spirits, the unquestioned pinnacle of liqueurs since 1874. Its detractors say nothing because it has no detractors.
Why not sample the very best of something you love? And if not now, when?
I have been thinking along these lines for about two years, as I said. I had a significant, round-number birthday two years ago, and also two good friends died around the same time. You only go around once in life, unless you’re Hindu or Buddhist, and the time to try Louis XIII may be drawing short.
I recently went to Chicago to celebrate a different birthday and also the significant birthdays that my wife and I both missed during the COVID shutdowns. I thought that would be a perfect time to open my mouth, my heart and my wallet to the once-in-a-lifetime experience of trying Louis Treize.
And then reality intervened.
Ten years ago, a bottle of Louis XIII cost about $2,500 — but I knew a place in Toledo, Ohio, where I was living, where you could find it for $2,100. It was a steal.
Either price is ridiculous, of course. Twenty-five hundred bucks for, let’s face it, a bottle of booze, is absolutely ludicrous. I forget what a single shot of it cost at the elegant steakhouse in town that carried it, but it was more than $100. I laughed at the idea of ever trying it.
But I was 10 years younger then, and my friends’ deaths were not coming quite so close together. Besides, I tell myself, as a food writer I need to know what the stuff tastes like, what the exquisite experience of consuming it is all about. For purely professional reasons, you understand.
So I went online and looked up places in Chicago where I could find a snort of Louis Treize. And then I looked up the prices.
Say what, now?
That $2,100 to $2,500 bottle of Louis XIII now costs $4,200 to $4,500. The cost of a single drink has skyrocketed from about $150 to $500 at some places and $800 at one other.
What was once merely ludicrous is now obscene.
Let us be clear about what we are talking about here: Cognac is made from grapes. On some basic, fundamental level, it shares its DNA with Welch’s Grape Juice.
And I don’t even like cognac, to tell the truth, or let us say that I have never acquired the taste for it. I’m a newspaper reporter, which is not the sort of profession that allows one to delve into even the more reasonably priced varieties of cognac.
But I had my hopes up. I wanted to try the very best of the best of the best. And I was shot down by the price. I simply could not pull the trigger on spending as much on a single drink as I spend on food for a month.
It’s not a generous pour, either. A standard ounce-and-a-half shot is three tablespoons. Three. To look at it another way, that $500 drink costs more than $55 for each tiny teaspoon.
So I was doleful. Dejected. Dispirited.
But I was also still intrigued. So I decided to look closer to home, to see if I could find it at a more reasonable price in St. Louis.
One ritzy hotel here charges $500 for a glass. But another, the Cinder Bar at the Four Seasons, sells it for a much more affordable $250.
I say “affordable” with a bitter laugh (and there is some question of whether you get one ounce for that price or an ounce and a half). That’s still 250 bucks, plus a tip.
So I won’t be getting the Louis Treize, ever. The grapes carefully selected for it by the Remy Martin Cellar Master are probably sour, anyway.
Besides, knowing me, I’d probably spill it.
Update: After writing this column, I went to Chicago and found a restaurant, Shaw’s Crab House, that serves one-half ounce of Louis XIII for $100. So I ordered it. I had one tiny sip … and then I spilled it. I swear to God, I spilled it all.
