Blind drunk gets new meaning at Sydney cocktail bar

By Pauline Askin

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Order a cocktail at Sydney's Zeta Bar and you are likely to find yourself whisked away to a secluded area, blindfolded and fitted with headphones as scented mists are sprayed in your face.

Cocktail connoisseurs seeking to unwind can now experience drinking at a New York City bar, a Hawaiian beach, a Caribbean hot spot or a bustling Havana street bar without leaving the comfort of their luxurious barstool.

"We are trying to sell it as an experience," consultant mixologist Grant Collins told Reuters at the Hilton Hotel, where Zeta bar is located.

"By using your other senses you heighten your culinary experience, and if you can do it with food then you can do it with drink, but it has to be really obvious," he added.

Instead of just giving customers a choice of shaken or stirred, Collins and the team at Zeta have since last week been offering patrons a full sensory experience, which they liken to visiting a spa.

Bar staff bring out a tray bearing the blindfold, a music player and mist bottles, and offer customers a choice of four "treatments", at A$25 ($22) each, out of the bar's 35-item cocktail menu.

"I actually had a heat lamp at one point, and a tray of sand so that people could think they were on the beach, but that was a bit too far," Collins said.

The longest experience on offer is the 12-minute "Sea Breeze", where customers sip on the vodka and fruit juice cocktail as they listen to the sound of waves lapping at a shore, with the occasional whiff of salty sea spray.