# Has there ever been a "connoisseur culture" about any drug other than alcohol? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 25, 2022, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076 "2022-12-25T15:16:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/61 "2022-12-31T18:16:26Z")
That’s a bit ridiculous. I’m sure a cannabis connoisseur can tell the difference between $50 an ounce ditchweed and a hydrogrown sample for $300. I’d be curious if they could then truly differentiate between the $300 and $1400 varieties. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/62 "2022-12-31T18:25:37Z")
_Anyone_ can differentiate. It’s $1100/ounce. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/63 "2022-12-31T18:28:39Z")
Well, obviously, but I’m saying _without_ the price tag attached. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/64 "2022-12-31T20:36:13Z")
According to sites like this, cannabis caviar is made by hand picking the best buds, then dipping them in hash oil, then rolling them in a dry ice hash. The total THC content can be 50-90% after all that. > **[Caviar vs. Moon Rocks - What's the Difference?](https://www.kaviar.co/single-post/2017/02/08/caviar-vs-moon-rocks-whats-the-difference)** > > Moon rocks and cannabis caviar are relative newcomers on the marijuana market, and if you haven't tried them yet, you're missing out on an extremely powerful high. Both moon rocks and caviar are high THC marijuana products that exceed the buzz... Also even at $1400/oz, that comes out to about $50 a gram which isn’t a horrible price for weed (the legal states near me charge $10-20/gram). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/65 "2022-12-31T21:57:14Z")
Am I correct in summing up so far it has been settled that wine, beer, coffee, tea, and cigars all represent consumables with some significant mood-altering drug content (alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine) that are subject to significant “connoisseur culture”? The other thing they have in common is that they are all generally legal. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/66 "2022-12-31T21:57:17Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > But it _strongly_ suggests that the connoisseur culture of those goods depends on something more than their flavor profile, like alcoholic beverages, which is the point I was making. I think it is way oversimplifying the issue to treat it as a binary choice between “the connoisseurship aspects of this consumption culture are solely due to the fact that it involves a drug” and “the connoisseurship aspects of this consumption culture are completely independent of the fact that it involved a drug”. Connoisseurship about any form of consumer good with a long tradition in human consumption is itself a long and complex tradition. And it is heavily influenced by intangible factors like prestige or rarity that play no direct role in the immediate sensory experience of consuming the good. Obviously, plenty of non-drug specialty consumer goods, like cured meats or potted orchids or precious stones or wristwatches or fine fabrics, have very entrenched connoisseur cultures including many orders of magnitude price differentials between “low-end” and “high-end” versions. But equally obviously, the main appeal that led to, say, wine or tobacco products or coffee or tea becoming a specialty consumer good in the first place was the chemically produced “buzz” feeling that users experienced. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/67 "2022-12-31T22:06:18Z")
Telling people who like the taste of certain alcoholic beverages that they’re lying to themselves because they wouldn’t enjoy pure alcohol is like telling someone who likes steak they are lying to themselves because they wouldn’t enjoy chunk of pure fat. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/68 "2022-12-31T23:23:39Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think it is way oversimplifying the issue to treat it as a binary choice between “the connoisseurship aspects of this consumption culture are solely due to the fact that it involves a drug” Then don’t do that. I certainly didn’t. Note the distinction between these two statements: _People consume substance X for no other reason than the buzz._ (sole motivation) _If substance X didn’t produce a buzz, people wouldn’t consume it._ (_sine qua non_). Apart from the drug experience, there are other reasons people pay high prices for fermentation products (a small but real factor being the taste of it). But if wine or beer didn’t contain alcohol, the other factors wouldn’t have been enough to establish the culture that now sustains NA choices. And of course alcohol-free distilled spirits don’t even merit mention, as much a logical impossibility as low-calorie sugar. The practice of distilling is by definition an alcohol-maximizing pursuit, and the culture of appreciation around those is _entirely_ around finding reasons to drink a substance that literally creates a painful burning sensation on the palate. Which - in that case, it’s obviously the buzz, and secondarily a certain social posture. To elaborate on that last bit, note that scotch aficionados generally don’t announce “I’m having some old scotch”, they invariably state the exact year of aging. In a blind test, a 15-year scotch is indistinct from a 16-year scotch. The number is a mark of sophistication that (A) you’re able to afford a 15-year scotch, and (B) you’re an experienced enough drinker to know that 15 is an important to mention, meaning that not only can you afford a bottle _tonight_, you’re affluent enough to do this on a regular basis. That’s the deal with distilled spirits. Pursuit of buzz, and in some cases a sense of affluence that absolutely would not survive the subtraction of the buzz. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/69 "2022-12-31T23:35:25Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I’m a “connoisseur” of low-brow food like fast food hamburgers, ma & pop hot dog stands, pizzas, etc., and I know plenty others who are similar. Individual preferences are not culture. They contribute in their sum to culture, but those are distinct things. Not all cultural artifacts, or enthusiasm are conoisseurship. Hot dog culture exists. It’s real. It’s contests where people try to eat massive amouts of hotdogs in one sitting. It’s the baseball park experience. Now, I’m sure if I Google “national hot dog board” I’ll probably find that America has something like that. Someone’s probably bought an expensive hot dog at an auction at least once. But there’s no fine-grained law on regions of hotdog production. There’s no generally accepted authority on what’s the finest hotdog. That is a culture, true. But it’s popular culture, not a _connoisseur culture_, and if you think that’s hair-splitting, I’d direct you to the title of this OP. And in that same vein I’d also point out that I’m talking about drugs and not food because, again, it speaks directly to the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/70 "2022-12-31T23:50:49Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Has any other drug had a “connoisseur culture” approaching that of alcohol? I’m going to weigh in on the side of disputing the premise. There is no connoisseur culture about the drug alcohol. Rather, there are connoisseur cultures around beverages that _contain_ alcohol (wine, beer, whiskey, etc.). I honestly do not know whether @HMS_Irruncible is correct that the effect of alcohol as a drug was a necessary condition for those connoisseur cultures to develop. But it seems clear to me that it was not a _sufficient_ condition. One could argue that [sugar is a drug](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/addiction-sugar-acts-like-drug-in-the-brain-and-could-lead-to-addiction-091813). There are no sugar connoisseurs, but I think it fair to say that there are connoisseurs of things that contain sugar. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/71 "2022-12-31T23:51:33Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > There’s no hypothetical to deny. Alcohol in all its forms is a drug, and the “conoisseur culture” around it is just a polite way of pretending it’s more than just a drug. If you remove the drug from the equation, then there are no alcohol-free wine-tastings, no alcohol-free craft beer events, absolutely no 20-year non-alcoholic scotch. All of it is mere window-dressing to legitimize the drug-seeking experience. I don’t know if that’s the case. Wine tasting is done in a fashion where it’s typically spat out after having been tasted. You’re not going to get very drunk if you’re spitting out each sample. And I think that categorizing it as “the drug-seeking experience” is selling it a bit short. If it were mere drug seeking, people would drink the cheapest rot-gut vodka they can find. But they don’t; they buy bottles of wine, whiskey/whisky, and cognac that cost _thousands_ of dollars. Nobody’s getting drunk from Louis XIII Cognac, for example. It’s $4000+ per bottle, which translates into a breathtaking $5.99 per _millliliter_, and a staggering $177.44 per ounce. Scotch whiskies like 50 year old Balvenie and Glenfiddich are _ **TEN TIMES THAT** _. Even something relatively mundane and within the price range of mere mortals as Wild Turkey Master’s Keep One at $194.99 is still a rather steep $7.69 per ounce. Considering that LOTS of bottles of whiskey, wine and cognac are more expensive than that, I’d hardly categorize that as “drug seeking experience”. I mean I’m sure the buzz is probably nice, but it’s not the end goal of the exercise. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/72 "2023-01-01T00:20:29Z")
hey now “bumwines” have their sordid uses …mom was an md/2020 girl.I liked the orange-flavored and white grape mad dog variety lol here’s a list lol > **[BumWine.com](http://www.bumwine.com/)** > > Exploring the five best known bum wines. > **[Macallan 1999 Easter Elchies 2012 13 Year Old](https://www.whiskyshop.com/macallan-1999-easter-elchies-2012-13-year-old)** > > A covetable bottle from The Macallan, this 2012 edition is named for the Easter Elchies house on the Macallan estate.This special whisky was originally reserved only for those who made the journey to the estate in the Speyside region of Scotland.... and this isnt even the mosxt expensive one they sell ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/73 "2023-01-01T00:24:40Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > Telling people who like the taste of certain alcoholic beverages that they’re lying to themselves because they wouldn’t enjoy pure alcohol is like telling someone who likes steak they are lying to themselves because they wouldn’t enjoy chunk of pure fat. I think it’s the other end that makes a sensible comparison. Rather than comparing people who enjoy wine but don’t like pure alcohol, the comparison should be between wine and grape juice. Likewise with steaks, the comparison should be with ground beef rather than pure fat. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/74 "2023-01-01T01:38:57Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Nobody’s getting drunk from Louis XIII Cognac, for example. It’s $4000+ per bottle, which translates into a breathtaking $5.99 per _millliliter_, and a staggering $177.44 per ounce. As an aside, I’ve **had** Louis XIII cognac. It was sublime. Not $200/pour sublime, but an experience I treasure anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/75 "2023-01-01T02:24:39Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > But if wine or beer didn’t contain alcohol, the other factors wouldn’t have been enough to establish the culture that now sustains NA choices. But the point is that, as I said, there are plenty of other substances that don’t contain alcohol that also have connoisseurship cultures of mindblowing complexity, elite pricing, and so on. Sure, buzz is a part of alcohol connoisseurship culture, in the same way that speed is a part of car connoisseurship culture, for example. Nobody would be drooling over Lamborghinis without any wheels just for the chance to put them up on blocks and stare at them as metal sculptures. But there are all sorts of other connoisseurship cultures that thrive just fine around objects with no buzz, or no speed, etc. What I’m trying to say is that the process that builds a connoisseurship culture around a particular consumer good is very individually complex and contingent. I don’t think it’s particularly useful to try to situate it specifically in one particular feature of the good, such as its psychotropic effect. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/76 "2023-01-01T02:49:58Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But the point is that, as I said, there are plenty of other substances that don’t contain alcohol that also have connoisseurship cultures of mindblowing complexity, elite pricing, and so on. Everything has _some_ driving force, though. Everyone eats food. Almost everyone listens to music. Most people either drive or at least have experience with cars. Etc. The natural forces keep the thing in cultural circulation, which enables the connoisseur culture to develop. Alcohol isn’t exactly nutritious, so the most plausible explanation is that it’s the drug effects that keep it in use. People wouldn’t drink it if it weren’t for that. And if alcohol did not have those effects, connoisseurship wouldn’t have developed. Maybe, _maybe_ some light beers would have been developed in ancient times for their antimicrobial properties and somehow persisted into the modern age, but it seems doubtful. Coffee seems like an edge case. Plenty of people find it tasty enough to drink decaffeinated. But one wonders if it would ever have gotten enough cultural traction without the caffeine to become widespread. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/77 "2023-01-01T03:01:01Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Everything has _some_ driving force, though. Yup, nothing becomes an object of connoisseurship without having a whole lot of people like it. And it is certainly true that one thing a lot of people like about alcoholic beverages is the effect of the alcohol on their central nervous systems. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Coffee seems like an edge case. Plenty of people find it tasty enough to drink decaffeinated. But one wonders if it would ever have gotten enough cultural traction without the caffeine to become widespread. Maybe not; but then, is it the caffeine that has made chocolate an object of connoisseurship? I don’t think so. Heck, even bottled water has managed to become an object of connoisseurship, [with some elite brands costing upwards of $1000 per bottle,](https://svalbardi.com/blogs/news/what-is-the-most-expensive-water-in-the-world) with no alcohol or caffeine “buzz” whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/78 "2023-01-01T03:13:42Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Maybe not; but then, is it the caffeine that has made chocolate an object of connoisseurship? I don’t think so. I’d agree, but just because chocolate is delicious by itself. Though there are so many steps involved in the conversion of cocoa beans into chocolate that maybe it never would have happened had caffeine not driven it through its nasty, bitter drink stage. So I dunno. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Heck, even bottled water has managed to become an object of connoisseurship Right. But people drink water anyway, which provides the cultural base for connoisseurship to develop. They don’t drink alcohol–except for the drug effects. After all, there aren’t any other industrial chemicals that people get worked up over. It’s just water and ethanol. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/79 "2023-01-01T03:15:03Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > And if alcohol did not have those effects, connoisseurship wouldn’t have developed. I don’t know if I agree with that. Alcohol carries flavors, so it has a purpose beyond simply intoxicating the drinker. If alcohol were not intoxicating, but still carried flavor as it does, I sincerely believe connoisseurship would still have developed with these drinks. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076/80 "2023-01-01T03:23:18Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Alcohol carries flavors, so it has a purpose beyond simply intoxicating the drinker. I agree, but that’s only considering the modern cultural base it occupies, with the huge variety of wines, beers, and spirits. And that, I posit, never would have happened in the first place without the intoxicating effects. There has to be some underlying driving force to spread it across the culture. It’s only after that happens that it can undergo refinement and we can start appreciating the other qualities. If everyone had for whatever reason had been drinking alcohol anyway, connoisseurship surely would have still developed. My question is why that premise would have been true without the intoxication. It’s obvious in the case of food and some other things. But why alcohol? I mentioned above that the antimicrobial properties might be a possibility. People sometimes drank beer early on not to get drunk, but because clean water wasn’t available. That just doesn’t seem like quite enough of a kick to make it a cultural phenomenon, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-connoisseur-culture-about-any-drug-other-than-alcohol/977076.md?page=5)