Cocktails with a view, and what you're actually paying for

Where the price gap comes from

Three things sit inside the difference, and they are worth separating because only one of them is about the drink.

• Rent and position. Ocean-facing frontage is the most expensive real estate on this coast. That cost lands in the drink whether or not the drink is good.
• The scarcity window. A sunset terrace sells its best ninety minutes at a premium, the same way an airline sells a Friday evening seat.
• The bar programme. House infusions, fresh juice pressed that day, ice made properly, a bartender who knows dilution. This is the part actually worth paying for, and it is the part hardest to see from outside.

What to order when the bar is slammed

Between five and half past six every bar on this coast is at maximum load, and the drink you choose decides whether it arrives while the light is still good.

• Spirit-forward drinks are fast. Negroni, old fashioned, martini — stirred, few ingredients, no shaking. They come out in a minute.
• Anything with egg white, muddled fruit or a foam is slow. Beautiful, and worth it at eight o'clock rather than at six.
• Frozen and blended drinks are the slowest of all, because one blender serves the whole terrace.
• Order the second round with the first if you are staying for the sunset. The bar clears by seven and the wait halves.

What Bali does better than the classics

Imported spirits carry heavy duty here, which is why a straightforward gin and tonic can cost more than a complex signature. The economics push the other way from what visitors expect: the house creations are often the better value and the better drink.

Local distillates — arak in particular — have gone from something you avoided to something serious bars build around. A well-made arak-based drink with fresh tropical fruit is genuinely of this place, costs less than a whisky cocktail, and is what a bartender here would rather be making.

Fresh juice is the other advantage. Passionfruit, lime, pineapple, mango pressed the same morning is normal here and expensive anywhere else. If a menu leans on it, that is a good sign.

The part that changes the bill

Two drinks and a minimum spend of 500,000 per person are not the same evening as two drinks. On terraces with a view, ask three things before you sit down:

• Is there a minimum, and is it per person or per table?
• Does it apply to the seat you're being offered, or only to the front row?
• Is tax and service included in the menu price, or added after? On this island it is almost always added, at 15–21%.

None of this is unusual and none of it is hidden — but it is rarely volunteered, and it decides whether a 250,000 cocktail is a 250,000 cocktail.

How ours works

We run a rooftop bar on Jl. Batu Belig, so this is our own place described rather than judged.

No cover charge and no minimum spend, at any table — which means the price of the drink is the price of the evening. Tax and service is 18%, stated on the menu rather than discovered on the bill.

Signature cocktails, teapots of premium tea for the non-drinkers, fresh lemonades, wine, spirits and beer. And because the kitchen runs to 2:30 AM and the bar to 4, a drinks stop turns into dinner without moving — which is unusual on this coast and is really the only structural difference worth mentioning.

Where to look

Seminyak and Petitenget hold the strongest cocktail programmes and the highest prices; Canggu has more experimentation and more variance; Batu Belig sits between them with fewer venues and less competition for a table.

If you want the comparison by price and closing time rather than by photograph, it's in the rooftop guide and the sunset bars guide. For the timing of the light itself, this piece.

Questions we get asked