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Personally, I find that whiskey, beer, tequila and mescal are the only alcohol products where price really does line up with quality.

by eric_h 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago
The problem with wine is that the mass market products really do vary primarily in sweetness, spiciness, and viscosity. There are hundreds of different brands, but not really all that many variables to play with. What's worse is that wine distributors are expert marketers and cover the price spectrum, so you can pay a lot of money for something that is essentially a mass market product. But go to an extremely nice restaurant sometime --- my revelation happened at Alinea in Chicago --- and get a tasting menu with a wine pairing. Clearly it is not the case that all wine falls within the parameters of mass market wine. You'll get glasses of wine that blow your head off. Frustratingly: they will probably be "conventional" wines: I still remember the Pinot Noir they served me, but I've had no luck reproducing any of that experience by shopping for Pinot Noirs at any part of the price spectrum at wine stores. The wines a place like Alinea sells are very difficult to source. You're starting to see some of the same effect in American whiskey: the so-called "craft" distiller movement is really just an excuse for branding firms to stake out different points on the whiskey product price spectrum, and all of them taste either like Makers, VOB, or something in between.
kasey_junk 10y ago
I don't. There is a whole booming industry right now in relabelling mass produced spirits and marking them up. Now older whiskey for instance is going to always cost more than younger, and its usually going to be better, but you can get similarly aged whiskeys produced with the same or similar mash bills from the exact same facility that vary dramatically in price.
- eric_h 10y ago
  I suppose I should have narrowed what I mean by whiskey to scotch-from-scotland, as price very much lines up with quality for scotch. The same is true for mezcal-from-oaxaca. The current trend of "craft" distillers relabeling factory made bourbons and ryes is a different animal.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    There are fewer out-and-out fake scotch whiskey products; I can't, for instance, think of the Scottish equivalent of Templeton Rye. But that doesn't mean price and quality are aligned. There are good deals in scotch, and there are bad deals. There are mediocre scotches that command huge prices for their brand. There's a sharp trend towards no-age-statement scotches clearing the way for more like that. Also: part of the reason there are fewer fake whiskeys in Scotland is that they're practically all owned by Diageo and Pernod Ricard. Within those corporate families, distilleries are outsourcing a lot of their grain production, malting, &c. The stills themselves are mostly software-controlled. The median scotch is probably better than the median bourbon, but there's a case to be made for bourbon having higher highs. There's also a trend towards startups lighting up silent distilleries in Scotland, so prepare yourself for craft scotch as well.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Personally, I find that whiskey, beer, tequila and mescal are the only alcohol products where price really does line up with quality.

by eric_h 10y ago

Personally, I find that whiskey, beer, tequila and mescal are the only alcohol products where price really does line up with quality.

tptacek 10y ago

The problem with wine is that the mass market products really do vary primarily in sweetness, spiciness, and viscosity. There are hundreds of different brands, but not really all that many variables to play with. What's worse is that wine distributors are expert marketers and cover the price spectrum, so you can pay a lot of money for something that is essentially a mass market product. But go to an extremely nice restaurant sometime --- my revelation happened at Alinea in Chicago --- and get a tasting menu with a wine pairing. Clearly it is not the case that all wine falls within the parameters of mass market wine. You'll get glasses of wine that blow your head off. Frustratingly: they will probably be "conventional" wines: I still remember the Pinot Noir they served me, but I've had no luck reproducing any of that experience by shopping for Pinot Noirs at any part of the price spectrum at wine stores. The wines a place like Alinea sells are very difficult to source. You're starting to see some of the same effect in American whiskey: the so-called "craft" distiller movement is really just an excuse for branding firms to stake out different points on the whiskey product price spectrum, and all of them taste either like Makers, VOB, or something in between.

kasey_junk 10y ago

I don't. There is a whole booming industry right now in relabelling mass produced spirits and marking them up. Now older whiskey for instance is going to always cost more than younger, and its usually going to be better, but you can get similarly aged whiskeys produced with the same or similar mash bills from the exact same facility that vary dramatically in price.

eric_h 10y ago
I suppose I should have narrowed what I mean by whiskey to scotch-from-scotland, as price very much lines up with quality for scotch. The same is true for mezcal-from-oaxaca. The current trend of "craft" distillers relabeling factory made bourbons and ryes is a different animal.
- tptacek 10y ago
  There are fewer out-and-out fake scotch whiskey products; I can't, for instance, think of the Scottish equivalent of Templeton Rye. But that doesn't mean price and quality are aligned. There are good deals in scotch, and there are bad deals. There are mediocre scotches that command huge prices for their brand. There's a sharp trend towards no-age-statement scotches clearing the way for more like that. Also: part of the reason there are fewer fake whiskeys in Scotland is that they're practically all owned by Diageo and Pernod Ricard. Within those corporate families, distilleries are outsourcing a lot of their grain production, malting, &c. The stills themselves are mostly software-controlled. The median scotch is probably better than the median bourbon, but there's a case to be made for bourbon having higher highs. There's also a trend towards startups lighting up silent distilleries in Scotland, so prepare yourself for craft scotch as well.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]