During a recent rainy Wednesday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, Aryna Sabalenka easily defeated Polina Iatcenko, Jaime Faria briefly made Carlos Alcaraz look uncomfortable, and the roof turned the U.S. Open's main court into its own sealed-off world. Around it all moved the night's unofficial accessory—A sea of pink-orange Honey Deuces, each topped with three melon balls and priced like a dare.
At $23, the tournament's signature cocktail is expensive enough to complain about but popular enough to keep setting sales records. The Honey Deuce rose from $22 to $23 in 2024, yet demand barely flinched. Open sold a record 738,459 Honey Deuces—up 32 percent from 556,782 the year before.
Just two years earlier, sales totaled roughly 450,000. Normally, raising the price of something makes people buy less of it but the Honey Deuce has done the exact opposite, which raises a different question entirely. What if the Honey Deuce is actually too cheap?
Perhaps we should think of the Honey Deuce as something more than a cocktail. After all, $23 is almost inarguably too much for a cup filled with vodka, lemonade, raspberry liqueur and three honeydew melon balls. But, maybe, people aren’t really paying for a cocktail but what that drink represents.
Let’s call it the Honey Deuce Index—a wholly unscientific way of measuring when an everyday purchase stops behaving like the thing it is and starts behaving like a status souvenir. The index is simple—Compare how loudly people complain about the price with how many continue buying anyway. By that measure, the Honey Deuce isn't really competing with the vodka soda at your neighborhood bar.
It's competing with the commemorative towel, the limited-edition hat, the Ralph Lauren polo, even the ticket stub itself. The drink comes with a souvenir cup, photographs beautifully, instantly signals where you are and leaves behind something tangible after the ice melts. It has become less of a beverage than a ritual, a souvenir of a memory.
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