The latest yuppie obsession is mystical, rare, and illegal. (Don't worry, it's organic.)

-By Ian Daly
-Photograph by Brian Finke

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Photograph by Brian Finke

The Touraine Sauvignon Blanc would have been enough—or the carved wooden platters with their arrays of tabbouleh, hummus, and fruit. But the thing that's really setting this cocktail party apart is the cucumber water—a big glass pitcher of filtered ice water with a few wafer-thin slices of the vegetable bobbing around the surface.

"Nice, isn't it?" Steve asks (the names in this story have been changed). He's a 33-year-old medical student with frameless glasses, dressed in a crisp white American Apparel polo shirt. "It just gives it that little added something." Steve and his wife, Cindy, a 32-year-old journalist with long, coffee-colored hair, are hosting this gathering at their cozy two-bedroom house in Richmond, Virginia. The lights are low, and some chill-out music with a Brazilian vibe is wafting out of the Bose speakers. Cindy's talking real estate and gardening with Stella, an elegant redhead in a lacy black top who's clutching a glass of that Sauvignon Blanc. James, a dating coach, is inquiring about the art hanging above the sofa. Steve tells him it's a recent acquisition. "We love it," he says. And Brian, a local author, is talking about his pants, which look something like pink seersuckers, except the stripes go sideways.

"A guy in San Francisco makes them," he says. "They're called cordarounds. They're so comfortable!"

At around 10:30, the party takes a turn. Brian sets his wine down and produces a small silken pouch. He extracts a folded wine label, and displays the contents on a table beneath a vintage lamp: about 10 grams of tar-colored opium—a Tootsie Roll-size chunk worth about $750.