Are you bored of specialty "Martinis/Cosmopolitans"?

(When I think of a Martini, this is more or less the first thing that pops into my mind.)

Have you ever gone out for a few drinks, eyeing up the cocktail list of your favorite pub, restaurant, or club, and noticed that the signature cocktails section seems to be a random mash-up of various fruit flavored Martinis? Martinis of either the gin or vodka variety are easily one of my cocktails of choice. While I greatly prefer the gin variety, I can appreciate the value of a good vodka Martini, as well. Grey Goose? Chopin? Or perhaps a craft vodka? Sign me up! It can be pretty awesome stuff, taken from a chapter of my very own book of awesome stuff. Generally speaking, though, I like to taste the spirit I'm spending money on.

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Heck, you may have noticed that I'm a big fan of the classics in general. I often like to try new twists, or different takes on well established classics. In general, I'm also a big fan of niche trends in the cocktail scene, preferring brave new experiments, over safe, tried and true routes of intoxication. Beer cocktails? I was totally all over that. Cassis? Awe, yeah! Craft revolution? D'uh...

(Not only is this a beer cocktail, it also contains Creme de Cassis AND champagne. Now that's fancy!)

Specialty cocktail lists are a particular area of discouragement for me, however, whenever I dine or drink out. Why, may you ask, that I often find myself face palming in response to specialty cocktail lists? Well, the complaint is that approximately ninety five percent of every cocktail list I see is full of the same concept of signature Martinis/Cosmopolitans. It goes goes something like this: take a flavored vodka, water it down with a random liqueur, water it down even more with sweeteners, sours, and whatever other random juice, syrup or puree you can find to cover up any trace of alcohol. The outcome is that you end up with candy in a Martini glass.

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Now don't get me wrong. These drinks have their place. It's nice to have a variety of cocktails for people who don't particularly enjoy the taste of spirits (or alcohol in general). The unfortunate side effect is that every single signature cocktail ends up using this same method. On the bright side, there are several environments where this is not the case. BUT. Just to reiterate the point of contention, these brave new bars are usually on the higher end of the price spectrum, with absolutely no gradation moving down to more economically feasible bars.

(Here are a couple of signature Martinis I actually don't quite mind.)

In all fairness, I understand that the response to this disappointment could be "If you want classics, then you can order them." And yes, in many ways, I do want more of the classics, but again that's not the point. What I actually would like to see more of, is an establishment's individual take on well established classics such as the gin and tonic, Manhattan, or Negroni. That's not all, though. I also want to see completely new, ground breaking cocktails that get their roots from more modest palettes than the "sweet and sour" of cosmopolitan fame.

In short. I'm bored. I want variation. Am I asking for too much?