Bali florist cashes in on Valentine’s Day with banknote bouquets, chocolate penises

It’s official. Flowers and Ferrero Rocher are yesterday’s news. The new black? Banknote bouquets, of course.

Bali resident I Made Wira Astika started his small floristry business last year, crafting bouquets of flowers to sell from his home in Kerobokan, according to local-language media outlet, Nusa Bali.

But this Valentine’s Day, the crafty Casanova noticed an emerging trend for bouquets of a different type — that’s when he began making them out of money.

The demand has apparently been so good that Astika has ditched conventional bunches of flowers altogether. And “good,” according to the source, amounts to about 20 orders per day around the busy Valentine’s Day period.

The price of each bouquet varies depending on the denomination of the preferred banknotes. Most people apparently opt to use IDR2,000 (US$0.14) or IDR5,000 (US$0.35), but some splash out with IDR100,000 notes (US$7.10), said Astika, who charges IDR65,000 (US$4.61) arrangement fee per item.

“They [customers] pay us with cash. But we exchange their money first at the bank so that the notes are fresh,” he told Nusa Bali.

Astika’s most expensive creation to date was priced at IDR4,000,000 (about US$284), and was crafted from 40 red bank notes.

Quite the entrepreneur, Astika also makes and sells chocolates to go with the banknote bouquets.

His Valentine’s range of sweets includes roses, hearts, lips, pigs, diamonds, snails, and penises.

Yes, you read that right.

“The best-selling item this year has been the penises. Most of the orders have come from women,” Astika told Tribun Bali.

What’s more, he offers them in different colors, so you can choose your chocolate penis in your preferred hue: yellow, pink, white, or red. Genius.

Astika’s bespoke chocolates are apparently also available in limited-edition shapes for Eid-al-Fitr, Christmas, and Galungan. So you’d better get your orders in now.