{"id":464,"date":"2024-09-02T20:14:51","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T20:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2024\/09\/honey-deuce.html"},"modified":"2024-09-02T20:14:51","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T20:14:51","slug":"honey-deuce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=464","title":{"rendered":"Honey Deuce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much like the Triple Crown races<\/a>, tennis's U.S. Open has an official cocktail, the Honey Deuce<\/a>. (Not to be confused with the Honey Fitz<\/a>, which I wrote about in "Festive Drinks<\/a>.")<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Honey<\/a><\/p>\n

The drink was commissioned by Grey Goose, the official vodka supplier of the Open, from mixologist Nick Mautone<\/a>. The brief was for something refreshing and tasty, sure, but above all something that would be easily batchable in bulk, given the size of the Open crowds. And it couldn't hurt if it was eye-catching, one of those instantly appealing drinks that, when you see one go by, makes you desire one of those<\/em>. As Mautone told Vogue<\/em><\/a> a couple years ago:<\/p>\n

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Mautone constantly mulled it all over that summer, turning his Hamptons house into a test kitchen of sorts. One failed version included rosemary syrup, another muddled lemons. But one afternoon, during a trip to a Shinnecock farmers market, a carton of mini spherical honeydew melons caught his eye. \u201cI thought. . . those look exactly like iridescent tennis balls<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even after hitting on the honeydew idea, Mautone took it through several iterations to ensure its simplicity and high-volume batchability, as he told Forbes<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

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"I made several variations that did not make the cut; many proved too hard for the venue to produce in large format," he says. This careful consideration ensured that the cocktail could be made at scale, easily prepared and served to the large crowds at the U.S. Open, always while delivering a quality, refreshing product.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I'm not generally a vodka fan, but it has its place, and there's nothing wrong with something crisp…especially if you're imbibing while sitting in the Flushing sun in August. If you pick one up at the Open, it'll run you a cool $23, but you do get to keep the souvenir cup<\/a>. This is a buck more than last year's Open, and the cocktail cost $12 when it made its debut in 2007. As Sportico pointed out a couple years ago<\/a>, the drink's price has historically risen faster than inflation:<\/p>\n

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Between 2012 and 2022, the drink\u2019s cost went up 57% (from $14 to $22), while the Consumer Price Index rose 29%. The biggest hike came between 2017 and 2019, when the price went from $16 to $18, a 12.5% raise, while the CPI went up<\/a> only 4%. CPI measures the average price change over time in a fixed market basket of goods and services, including food and drinks, but not expensive cocktails.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

They even went on to graph the rise!<\/p>\n

\"Honey<\/p>\n

The price wasn't much of an obstacle, however; last year there were 957,387 fans in attendance at the Open. And, they sold 450,000 Honey Deuce cocktails<\/a>, netting a cool (refreshing?) $9.9 million. (As CNBC points out<\/a>, that's well over the combined $7.2 million prizes awarded to the winners of the men's and women's tournaments.)<\/p>\n

And people go nuts for everything Honey Deuce – not many cocktails have their own merch, but this ones does. Per Newsday<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Mary Ryan, senior director of merchandise and licensing for the USTA, said that Honey Deuce items are available on the USTA\u2019s website and that there will be more on-site as this week unfolds.<\/div>\n
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\u201cThey throw them out of the warehouse in the morning and then we sell through them, so we\u2019re continually pulling them out of the warehouse,\u201d she said. \u201dI don\u2019t know how much more inventory I have to support it through the tournament.<\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019d love to hold back a bit just so we can have some for finals weekend. We want to make sure those folks also see what happened earlier.\u201d<\/div>\n
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After the early run on shirts and hats wiped out supplies, it was far easier to find someone drinking a Honey Deuce than wearing a Honey Deuce. . .<\/div>\n
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(A USTA spokesman said the shirt and hat were the two biggest-selling merchandise items during Fan Week.)<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I couldn't even find a working link to the shirt for sale on the USTA's site, but they are still selling a $40 trucker hat<\/a>…and even a melon-baller and garnish-pick set for $24<\/a>. Cocktail Courier will even deliver you a canned Honey Deuce set<\/a> in NYC or Chicago. <\/p>\n

Grey Goose has gone all-in, understandably, on the drink. Here's a Honey Deuce Locator<\/a> to tell you where you can get one in New York, besides the U.S. Open. And they've not only published the recipe<\/a>, but also variations such as a Frozen Honey Deuce<\/a> and a pitcher-sized scaled-up version<\/a> serving 9.<\/p>\n

Honey Deuce<\/strong><\/p>\n