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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

Yes, absolutely. Since the infamous cab tasting we've done blind tastings of spirits with similar results. Our favorite vodka, for example, turns out to be Seagrams Extra Smooth, which is about half the price of a "high end" vodka. Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out that way. My favorite scotch turns out to be Lagavulin or Laphroaig -- I really like the smokey flavor of Islay malts -- both of which are rather pricey.

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Come on. No, it isn't. Nobody in the world is going to confuse Laphroiag with Glenlivet, let alone with Buffalo Trace. They're fundamentally different products: they have different mash bills (so comparing them can be like comparing a Barolo to an Oregon Raspberry wine), they're produced differently (the Laphroaig is peat smoked), and they're aged differently (the Buffalo Trace in new oak for a short time, the Glenlivet in sherry butts for up to two decades).

I hear people make this comparison between wine tasting and whiskey tasting and drives me a little batty.

It's especially unfortunate that this comparison brings vodka into the mix, because vodka is a neutral spirit --- it's not supposed to be distinctive (Dave Arnold, when he was at the French Culinary, used to "make his own" by ordering potable ethyl lab alcohol and diluting it). But try to say the same thing for rum or gin: different brands are wildly different.

He's not talking about mixing styles, he's saying preference within style doesn't correlate with price, and I absolutely believe that holds with whiskey (cough whistle pig cough).

The difference between wine and whiskey is how few options you get within a style in whiskey tasting compared to wine. The options are small enough in whiskey that an amateur on a budget can memorize all of the flavor profiles relatively easily.

But that doesn't change the point that blind tasting whiskeys can give you interesting non-price correlated results.

Oh: strong agree, especially for American whiskey, where there's an extremely drinkable "well whiskey" price range, and an extremely memorable and excellent "boutique" price range (taken up mostly by Buffalo antiques), and virtually nothing worth paying for in the middle, where everyone shops.

(What's worse is that a lot of brands want to claim a price in the boutique price range --- like WhistlePig --- and so you really have to know what you're shopping for if you want to pay extra for it).

Sorry, Ron! I'm knee-jerk about people comparing wine tasting to beer and whiskey tasting. :)

No worries :-)

> virtually nothing worth paying for in the middle

I presume you know this, but an awful lot of those craft brands in the middle (including some of the Whistle Pig line) are made by the same distillery in Indiana. Which doesn't mean that they are bad, but it does disincline one to trust any of the puffery one reads on a label: http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/09/best-whiskey-spirits-from...

I did happen across one brand recently that surprised me by having a genuinely authentic and interesting story. They are doing a sweet potato base blended with their rye cover crop: http://www.outsideonline.com/2040581/drink-your-sweet-potato...

> Nobody in the world is going to confuse Laphroiag with Glenlivet

Of course not. That's not what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that when I do blind tastings, sometimes the cheap stuff turns out to be my favorite, other times not. (And when it does, I'm happy!)

> vodka is a neutral spirit --- it's not supposed to be distinctive

And yet it is. If you don't believe me, try comparing Ciroc to Smirnov. You don't even have to do it blind. If you can tell the difference between Laphroaig and Glenlivet (a very low bar) you'll be able to tell the difference between those two.

> rum or gin

There is definitely more variation in flavor there. FWIW, my picks are Bacardi Black rum and New Amsterdam gin. If it's a special occasion I'll have a Hendricks cucumber gimlet :-)

to be fair vodka isn't meant to have different tastes. it's meant to taste as much like hand sanitizer as possible.

Yeah, the vodka situation has gone out of control.

Traditional Polish test of vodka quality: did it have any flavor? Did you go blind? Do you have a horrible hangover? If all three answers are no, 100/100.

Very neat to hear, as I've been trying all sorts of different vodkas since one pivotal tasting. So I knew a Frenchman who was in the wine business and thought the market was too saturated, too tough, so he looked into spirits and saw vodka's large (~30%) market share and jumped in to the ultra premium space, the shelf above Grey Goose. His trick was to hire a skilled French distillery to run the vodka through 9 times, effectively cleansing it far beyond what most processing would be like (at the time). I had it over ice and can absolutely recall the pleasant experience drinking that came through. It was like no other vodka I'd had.

In the 10+ years since, however, I can go to my local shop and pick up a made in Texas (!) vodka distilled 6 times for about $20 a liter. Is it as good? No. Is it leaps and bounds better than what I remember from college and in general drinking out and about? Drastically better.

People look at me funny but I claim to be able to taste the copper still pots used in the making of Titos. Can't really over OJ, but if it's stiff enough. Just not my thing!

Well, of course it doesn't work for vodka. The definition of vodka is to be odorless and flavorless. "High end" vodka is almost literally a scam. (Read up on the founding of Grey Goose... the business plan was basically "Hey, I bet if we charge way too much for vodka we can get gullible Americans to pay it!")

I used to think that too, but it turns out that vodkas actually do have distinctive flavors, some of which are better than others (to me). I was skeptical until we tried it, and it turned out that my wife and I could both identify many high-end vodkas very reliably in blind tastings. Ciroc is particularly distinctive.

Vodka is almost universally manufactured from the same high-grade industrial ethanol, which is essentially pure. However, you are correct that some of them taste different! You might be disappointed, though, to discover that these flavors are often introduced as a small quantity of concentrates added to industrial ethanol during the bottling process. Not every brand has a subtle character modifier added to it but many do.

I know the family that owns the bottling plant for most of the vodka brands sold in California, from premium to bum brands; they bottle everything from the same railroad tanker cars of ethanol from ADM. It was eye-opening to see but it makes sense; ethanol distillation is a highly refined, industrial scale process. Ironically, some of the cheapest stuff is the purest (it costs money to add adulterants to ethanol, after all). The industrial distillation columns are extremely efficient, so extra "distillations" don't buy much.

Wow. Not that I doubt you, but is there any way to corroborate this story?

I'd also be interested to know about the flavoring used. It seems like this would run afoul of the US labeling laws for vodka, which require it to be "without distinctive character, aroma, or taste". This technicality of course doesn't mean that it's not done exactly as Andrew describes.

Here's a couple background articles on the bottler's role, without specific reference to flavorings:

http://adiforums.com/index.php?/topic/452-whiskey-bottling-v...

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18360315

> It seems like this would run afoul of the US labeling laws for vodka, which require it to be "without distinctive character, aroma, or taste".

That seems improbable because flavored vodkas are common.

That rule is specific to products labeled "Vodka".

Flavored vodka has to include the flavor on the label. Pages 2 and 11:

https://www.ttb.gov/spirits/bam/chapter4.pdf

Ah. Well, what can I say? I can easily tell the difference between different vodkas in blind tastings, though I can't necessarily tell you which is which. But my wife can consistently pick her favorite vodka out of a blind lineup.

For vodka, this is why I seek out actual russian imports, and I have a strong preference for potato distilled vodka. Unfortunately, finding these are few and far between, so grain it is. Still, when that's the case, I go for cheap vodka, and there's quite a strong difference there too. I'm talking 750ml for 7-8 dollars, some is just undrinkable, others are smoother than smirnoff (also not high end, just comparing to a well known, marketed as highish end).

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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