Famed New York hotel offers US$10,000 martini

Drinkers might want to keep a clear head when ordering a martini at New York's historic Algonquin Hotel or they might pay US$10,000 ($NZ14,110) for that cold sip.

The hotel, where famed wit Dorothy Parker and fellow literary lights at the Round Table imbibed, offers a US$10,000 martini, complete with a loose diamond at the bottom.

No one has ordered one yet, in the martini's first week on the menu, but the hotel hopes some romantic soul will buy one any day now.

"We haven't had any buyers yet, but a lot of people are talking about it," Anthony Melchiorri, the hotel's general manager, said on Wednesday.

The drink is designed to fit with tradition at the Algonquin, where Round Table members including Parker, writer Robert Benchley, playwright George S Kaufman and The New Yorker magazine founder Harold Ross gathered regularly.

Today, Parker's ode to the martini adorns hotel napkins: "I love a martini -- but two at the most. Three I'm under the table; Four, I'm under the host."

Parker's response to the US$10,000 martini might be mixed, the manager conceded.

"I think she would like the idea so long as she'd get to drink it," he said. "I don't think she'd care about the diamond, but she'd care about the martini."

Fear not, the manager added, no one can really order the martini by mistake. The tipple requires 72 hours' notice, and buyers meet a jeweller to select a gem and with hotel staff to ensure the cocktail is delivered to the right table.

- REUTERS