Taking A Sip Of Three Alluring New Seiko Presage Cocktail GMT Watches

Seiko serves three new cocktail-inspired watches, and I am slightly concerned that going hands-on with all of them at once will lead to delirium. The new Seiko Presage Cocktail GMT watches come in outspoken “flavors.” There’s the SSK037 Skydiving in refreshing light blue, the whiskey-inspired SSK039 Rusty Nail, and the fruity SSK041 Acacia. What’s your cocktail of choice?

The Rusty Nail is my favorite. Favorite cocktail, I mean. The 1-to-1 or 2-to-1 ratio of Scotch and Drambuie on the rocks served with an orange peel is my pick of the three cocktails Seiko serves. I like light blue, but a mix of rum, Blue Curaçao, and lime juice is not my “poison.” And neither is a combination of gin, Benedictine, and Kirsch that makes an Acacia. But my taste in liquid cocktails isn’t too different from my taste in watch cocktails.

Three intoxicating Seiko Presage Cocktail GMT watches: pick your “poison”

The colors of the three new Seiko Presage Cocktail GMT watches might be different, but they all have sunray-textured dials. And these dials are a very prominent feature, just as you would expect from a Presage Cocktail watch. All three are on the exuberant side. I bet that after downing a couple of cocktails with the same name as your Japanese “bar watch,” you could easily be hypnotized by the radiant and shiny qualities. But staring at these dials is better than staring at the bottom of your glass.

My pick of the three is the creation with the least flamboyant dial, the SSK039 Rusty Nail. The SSK037 Skydiving and the SSK041 Acacia are a bit too shiny. These watches all have a strong “night out on the town” vibe, but they do spend the night in different establishments. I imagine the SSK039 Rusty Nail taking it easy in a jazz café. The SSK041 Acacia has some wine-bar vibes, and the SSK037 Skydiving looks like it prefers clubbing until dawn. I choose jazz over the other two.

The functional cocktail glass

With GMT watches, there’s a difference between flyer and office (or caller) models — Thomas explained the difference perfectly here. The three new Seiko Presage Cocktail GMT watches are of the office variety. But since cocktails have no place in the office, I would like to refer to these specific timepieces as “bar GMT” watches.

That doesn’t take anything away from their functionality, though. If you ask me, enjoying a well-prepared cocktail in the soothing ambiance of a hotel bar while globetrotting is one of life’s great pleasures. With one of these three Seiko Presage Cocktail bar GMTs on the wrist, you’ll know exactly when to call home without waking anyone up — I strongly suggest doing it right after the first drink.

Anyway, the central 24-hour hand in the shape of the stem of an elegant cocktail glass tells the time on a 24-hour scale around the dial with a mix of applied indexes and printed Arabic numerals. You can adjust the hand in one-hour increments, independently of the others.

Shiny dial, shiny case

All three new presage Cocktail watches are outgoing types. The steel 40.5 × 12.8mm case is fully polished, which adds a few tenths of a millimeter visually. But it doesn’t change how the watches with their 47.5mm lug-to-lug length wear on the wrist. They are a bit too big to be considered traditional dress watches but also not sporty. If I had to, I would describe these Presage models as casual-chic all-arounders. They’re practical watches that will make life easier for you. It starts when choosing which watch to take with you on your travels. Just one watch that can handle everything is the answer. And during your journey across time zones, it keeps track of two of them. Plus, because the watches are water resistant to 50 meters, a recreational/accidental dip in the hotel pool with one of them on your wrist won’t cause it to lose track of time.

No movement surprise

Seiko put the automatic caliber 4R34 inside the new Cocktail trio. This GMT movement is based on the workhorse caliber 4R35. It offers a 3Hz frequency, bidirectional winding rotor, Seiko’s Magic Lever, hacking seconds, and a 41-hour power reserve — nothing too spectacular. And that also applies to the way it looks. The display case back shows an industrially finished movement. While I would prefer an all-steel case back with the engraved recipe of the cocktail that inspired the watch, I understand Seiko’s choice to show the movement in action.

Each of the three new Seiko Presage Cocktail GMT watches costs €600. These watches are aimed, for instance, at newcomers to the mechanical-watch game. Having a display case back showing the watch’s inner workings serves both an educational and inspirational purpose. It may also bring comfort to lovers of mechanical watches who checked out due to the rapidly increasing prices of their objects of fascination.

In any case, for €600, these new Seiko creations offer a lot of mechanical watch bang for the buck thanks to their slightly festive, casually dressy look and mechanical GMT movement. I’ll share one last thought on this caliber. The claimed accuracy is +40/-20 seconds per day, so that’s not fabulous. But once it starts to annoy you, you might be willing to spend a bit more on a Seiko with a better movement.

Seiko will start serving the SSK039 Rusty Nail, SSK037 Skydiving, and SSK041 Acacia in July 2024. And if these watches are not to your taste, the Presage Cocktail Time “Blue Acapulco” and “Grasshopper” are still on the menu.