Alex Hope, a young city trader who calls himself Alex Ace Of Spades ran up an eye-popping £203,948 (over $300,000) bill at a Liverpool’s club PlayGround, splashing out £125,000 ($200,000) alone on one bottle of champagne – a 30-litre double Nebuchadnezzar of Armand de Brignac Midas. The bubbly has been the showstopper at two occasions in the past – once at Las Vegas party and the other by The Champagne King Johnson in UK. Weighing a a hefty 99lb, it had to be carried to the trader’s table at swanky Liverpool club by two members of staff. Nightclub boss, George Panayiotou, ordered the DJ to play the iconic opening music to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey — Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra as it was ferried to the trader’s table.
George Panayiotou and club waiters carry 30L double Nebuchadnezzar of Armand de Brignac Midas weighing a hefty 99lb
Also on the bill was a cheaper, smaller bottle at £24,000, two bottles of Spades Brut at £4,500 each and 40 standard bottles of Ace of Spades, at £500 each, as well as two 4.5 liter bottles of Grey Gooze vodka coming in at £2,000 a pop. The massive bill of £203,948 also wrapped in a £18,540 ($30,000) tip!
Manager of the club Vasco Carealho said of Mr Hope: He was in the club on Saturday and he had pre-ordered the bottle. He has been to the club a couple of times. ‘The fact he wanted to order something like that was unusual and it was a surprise but we welcomed it and we just created the best spectacle for the service of the bottle.
The club, which opened in December last year, does not normally stock the 30-litre Armand de Brignac Midas champagne, and Vasco told how he had to use high security to get the bubbly to PlayGround. He said: We had to order the champagne in especially, as it not something we have on the menu. It came in a courier with a lot of protection, and when it arrived we kept it locked away in a special fridge.
But Alex’s jobless mother Tina, 53, took a dim view of his celebration at a time when millions of people are struggling to survive. At her modest three-bed terrace in Deptford, south London, where the average house price is the size of her son’s drinks bill, she said: I just hope he didn’t drink it all himself. I should suppose not. He’s a very good boy. I’m surprised by all this.
According to his own website, Hope, who lives in a London Docklands apartment, has had a meteoric rise since leaving school. Self-described as talented (three years in and a six-figure salary, hhmm), charismatic (its amazing how much ‘charisma’ a £125,000 bottle of bubbly will buy), and thoroughly likeable man. A biography on the site says: Throughout his youth, his passions were football and…currencies!
Record breaking bar bill of £203,948
Alex Hope and George Panayiotou (Copyright-SWNS)
