Sure, you can plunk down big bucks on an over-the-top cocktail at a four-star hotel after a day on the mountain. Or聽you can do apr猫s your way: served out of a paper bag while sitting around the campfire.
Below, you鈥檒l find some of the most expensive drinks on offer this apr猫s season聽and how to DIY them in true dirtbag fashion.
Old Rip Fashion, The St. Regis Aspen
Never mind that you can buy a bottle of聽 for $69.聽This $100 cocktail, which blends the aforementioned bourbon,聽demerara (brown sugar for rich folks), and orange bitters, is the next best thing to lighting $20 bills on fire. Is the St. Regis鈥櫬 a gorgeous setting for an apr猫s drink? Sure. But聽you鈥檒l have just as much fun DIYing an old-fashioned in your flask.
Do It Yourself
Combine two聽ounces of your favorite affordable bourbon聽(聽costs about $24 and allegedly tastes pretty close to our good friend Rip Van Winkle), one sugar cube, a few shakes of angostura bitters, and a strip of orange rind in a measuring cup. Stir, then pour the mixture into your flask.
High West Whiskey Rubdown, The Lodge at Blue Sky, Park City, Utah
We鈥檝e heard of having the scent of alcohol聽coming from our pores, but at this luxury hotel, they鈥檒l . This $360聽90-minute treatment includes sipping a glass of聽 whiskey during a whiskey-infused foot scrub, followed by a massage with liniment鈥攋ust like your grandpa鈥檚 racehorses got.
Do It Yourself
Oh, your grandpa didn鈥檛 own prized racehorses? Neither did ours. Recreate this apr猫s experience with a glass of High West鈥檚 Campfire, a blend of scotch, bourbon, and rye. The whole bottle will set you back about $40, which isn鈥檛 bad when split among friends. Pass around the foam roller and put new foot warmers in your boots. Finish with a round of Icy Hot, the poor man鈥檚 liniment.
99 Bottles of Beer, W Aspen
For a cool $999, you can have 99 bottles of beer delivered to the W鈥檚 rooftop pool and lounge area for you and a lot of your friends. The beer comes from Jackson Hole鈥檚 Roadhouse Brewing Co., and the haul is delivered via a mini VW bus that serves you and your friends all afternoon.
Do It Yourself
Gather your friends, pile them into a van, find a designated driver, and head to your nearest craft beer bar. Once you鈥檙e there, sing 鈥99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.鈥澛燨r skip that step and maintain your sanity.
The Frostoria,聽Waldorf Astoria Park City
Why build an igloo out of free snow when you could build one out of glass? That鈥檚 the new take, and you and your friends can sit in one while splitting a $42 plate of meat, cheese, crackers, and dried fruit and sipping $20-plus cocktails.
Do It Yourself
You鈥檙e in ski country鈥攜ou don鈥檛 need to build an igloo to be surrounded by snow. Build yourselves a fire instead, set up a few chairs, and split a roll of summer sausage, a wheel of good cheese, and a hunk of crusty bread. One of the Frostoria鈥檚 signature cocktails is a mix of grapefruit juice, tequila, and green chartreuse. You could easily make a portable Paloma鈥攁 classic drink using grapefruit and tequila鈥攂y mixing two ounces of tequila and a squeeze of lime juice in your flask, then pouring that into a grapefruit Spindrift at cocktail time.