Grocery/dairy store in Connecticut [Stew Leonards, if you must know =) -] at one point in time sold 3 cute little jars of lumpfish caviar, plain, soy or wasabi flavored. They were also reassuringly inexpensive, like $5US per 1 ounce jar. Made it so I was actually willing to make blinis demidorf a couple times.
Refuse to spend for sturgeon caviar, and they are a dwindling population so lumpfish which has the same mouthfeel and salty fish egg taste [will not claim any sort of talent at tasting the miniscule differences in salty fish eggs] as the expensive crap is what I buy if I absolutely need salted fish eggs.
I don’t like waterfall/rain shower heads. I really really prefer a hand-held shower head. But if i can’t have that, i at least want it to be aimed at an angle so i can point it at my back and keep my hair (mostly) dry.
I don’t get it either. But I suppose it depends on what you want to do with it. Drink it straight, or in a vodka martini, you might want something from the top shelf. But if you mix it with anything—Coke, tonic, ginger ale, tomato or clamato or orange juice, or just about anything other than dry vermouth—you don’t need top shelf stuff. The taste of the mix always overwhelms the vodka.
Ah, the great vodka debate. I once had my son set up a blind taste test of six vodkas, from CVS gallons to various super premiums. My circle of weekend blowhards took tastes and rated them each from least to most favorite.
The results were utterly random except for one distinct pattern: people tended to like their vodkas more after three or four previous tastes.
I don’t generally pay to fly first class, but that’s definitely something i enjoy if it falls into my lap for whatever reason.
I don’t like vodka in general, but if they all taste the same (and the legal definition literally includes that it doesn’t have a distinctive taste) then i doubt anyone likes expensive vodka less than the cheap stuff.
I thought the point of this thread was “luxuries that you’d prefer to avoid”, not the rather commonplace “luxuries you didn’t think are with paying for”.
Which is why i mentioned rain showers. Please, no.
It is more or less straight vodka, and by Federal law, Vodka is supposed to be mostly tasteless. Of course- cheap vodka is bad, but once you get to say Smirnoff, most can not tell the difference. Grey Goose is mostly marketing and a cool bottle, it generally does just okay in blind taste tests.
The results? Vodka A, voted the cheapest, turned out to be Grey Goose. Vodka C was Titos (spot on for a mid-range guess). And — drumroll, please — Vodka B, voted the most expensive, was Smirnoff. I was shocked. (Full disclosure: Smirnoff did set up the tasting, but we had no idea which alcohol was which until after the fact.) The cheaper vodka option I had loved in my youth actually tasted better than the “high-quality” pricier bottles that I now turned to time and time again. So contrary to popular belief, price does not directly correlate to quality or taste. We, in turn, can (and should) decide for ourselves which taste and price point we feel comfortable selecting.
I get ingrown toenails, and if I find the right technician. I get relief.
Its conspicuous consumption. You’re showing people ‘I have so much money I can afford to spend it on unnecessary things since I have more than enough to meet my needs’.
Cars, giant houses, yachts, jewelry, watches, clothing accessories, etc are big on this.
I can understand this POV, but safety features on cars are advancing rapidly. Cars that are 10+ years old don’t have nearly as many integrated safety features as newer cars.
True, but one can enjoy a fancy car, or a yacht. They do things that less expensive cars and boats don’t do. An expensive watch, like jewelry, is just for show. My wife has a lot of nice jewelry, but I doubt any of it is worth what a Rolex costs. (I don’t really know what a Rolex costs though)
Theres different levels of cars though. Like an $80,000 luxury sedan will have features that aren’t on a $25,000 sedan. But for the higher echelon of cars they have limited production lines to increase the prices (bugatti, rolls royce, etc). Car prices go into the tens of millions for limited production models.
Also among the rich, getting the biggest and most expensive yacht is how they signal their superiority to each other.
The least expensive Rolex men’s production watch has a suggested retail of about $6,500. The most expensive is about $160,000. The bulk of models are in the $50-80K range. They also have various options and upgrades and for the real enthusiast, custom one-off’s.
Rolex very aggressively polices who sells their watches for how much. You can expect to pay full retail every time until you’ve bought a dozen or so.
Ref here: Rolex man watches (US).
Super expensive cigars. Well, let me qualify. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them, but the added value (relative to cost) is lost on me. I still indulge periodically, and I’m invariably disappointed.
I can tell a $2 cigar from an $8 cigar, but I don’t think I can tell the difference between an $8 cigar and a $50 Cuban. That’s the extent of the subtleties I can discern.
Excessively dark chocolate. 55% cacao is about as dark as I like it. Anything more tastes like punishment for swearing. I like Hershey’s Special Dark. There, I said it.
Excessively sharp cheddar. I like cheddar for the smooth cheesy taste, not the pucker power. Medium cheddar is best.
Mmm, very very old cheddar. I like chocolate up to about 85%, too, but i didn’t when I was younger. And i think my favorites are currently in the 65%-72% range.
Jewelry is partly to show off wealth, but it’s also because people like to ornament themselves. Tattoos aren’t a show of wealth, for instance. And there’s lots of inexpensive jewelry people enjoy.