There’s a bigger quality difference between cheap whiskey and expensive; try a taste test between Johnnie Walker Red, Black and Blue to see what it precisely is. For vodka and gin, there’s less of a discernible difference. In fact, I prefer rail gin to artisanal gin in martinis. Esquire had an article about a year ago comparing mixed-drink cocktails with cheap ingredients to with pricey ones and came down foursquare in favor of the former.
Got a link to that article? I make Gordon’s martinis at home but always call for a British gin like Tanqueray or Beefeater when dining out.
Gordon’s isn’t true lower shelf. It is just mid-lower shelf. Trust me, there are some nasty true lower shelf gins out there. Mid-lower shelf is generally palatable if not the classiest thing to serve at a party (at least in the original bottles). True lower shelf liquor can be found at most large liquor stores especially in poor neighborhoods. Just look for the cheapest plastic jugs sort of hidden away on the literal bottom shelf and pick one with some dust on it.
You may be surprised because a few of them are semi-decent but you can also get very unlucky and end up with something that makes you wonder how something so simple could be so bad not just that night but the next day as well. It is the cheap gift that keeps on giving. I don’t know enough about liquor distilling to truly understand all of the ways it can go wrong but all I know is that it does in very bad ways and it is sold to desperate people.
Try a couple of the worst off brands you can find sometime. Gordon’s Gin and any mid-shelf vodka will seem like luxury items from then on.
To quote P.F. Tompkins, “If you’ve never had Old Crow then you’ve never accidentally sprayed hairspray into your mouth.” That’s all the recommendation I need for that.
For vodka I’d recommend Dobra or Nikolai. They’re both about as cheap as you can get and they go well in a cocktail.
I’ve never understood the point of “good” vodka. If it’s “good” then it tastes of nothing. The only flavor vodka has is rocket fuel, unless it’s hidden by all the other stuff in the cocktail. Which is what a cocktail is for, hiding the flavor of rotgut hooch.
You guys are cracking me up. I’ve attended a bottom-shelf bourbon blind taste test and Old Crow was the winner and not one of us went blind (At least not permanently)!
It’s almost certainly some combination of where and how long the whiskey was aged.
Most distillers make a VERY limited set of initial distillates, and then age them differently for their various labels.
For example, coming off the still, there’s no difference between a barrel destined to become Evan Williams, Evan Williams Single Barrel, Elijah Craig 12 yr, and Elijah Craig 18 yr. The only difference is the aging- where in the rickhouse and for how long that barrel’s aged. As the aging goes up, the price goes up, and so does the prestige of the label.
Here’s a whiskey family tree graphic that sort of shows it.
Surely you don’t mean the Rittenhouse Rye products, which are made by Heaven Hill?
Within brands? Try across brands - many popular brands, like Bulleit and Templeton come from the same source. This was big news a little while back, but isn’t as dire as people assumed. It does not say that they are the same, and the only difference is marketing. But when a new distillery opens and advertises a 12-year batch, it’s pretty obvious that they didn’t do that part themselves.
You’re talking about LDI/MGP right? They’re kind of a special case, in that they provide wholesale bulk unaged whiskey (and I think aged whiskey as well) to companies looking to age and blend their own products.
In particular, they have a 95% rye product that’s showing up in multiple guises and treatments- Bulleit Rye started out as 95% rye from LDI, and so does the Dickel Rye. They’re aged differently, and in the case of the Dickel Rye, charcoal filtered. They’re most emphatically NOT the same thing- I’ve had bottles of both open at the same time, and they’re definitely similar, but not that similar.
I was more talking about the practice of just barreling the white dog and then deciding what it will be at bottling/blending time. That’s what the Heaven Hill guy at Tales of the Cocktail in 2009 explained. Basically a barrel gets filled off the still and put into the rickhouse, and it might end up as Evan Williams, or it might end up as Elijah Craig 18 year, depending on where, how and how long it’s aged. But they don’t really make any distinction coming off the still- it’s all the same stuff when it goes into the barrel (and the barrels are the same too).
With the best will in the world you are probably fooling yourself. Don’t be insulted, absolutely everyone is subject to confirmation bias. You taste what you want to taste and what you expect to taste.
I’m sure you’ve never double-blind tested your ability to distinguish your “favourite” vodka when made into a martini or when served at freezer temps.
I suspect what you mean is that you have an aesthetic preference and that’s fine, why not? (and the skull-shaped decanter is a rather obvious admission from the manufacturers to this very point), but if you are really saying that you can pick out your own preference from a line-up of vodkas then you appear to be doing something that others simply cannot.
Old Crow is decent cheap whiskey. It runs about $16 for a 1.75L handle. Of all the cheap whiskeys I have tried, and I have tried dozens, it is by far the best. Learn from my experience of the last 15 years of drinking cheap whiskey. Old Crow.
As far as vodka, Smirnoff is good. Of course all vodka is bad but Smirnoff is less bad. If you are desperate get the skol instead because ounce for ounce it is half the cost of Smirnoff. But if you can spurge, spend $20 on a 1.75L handle Smirnoff instead of $10 on Skol.
No idea about rum, tequila, gin, etc.
Hey thanks, I didn’t know that. Next time I am near a Costco I will sample their hooch.
I’ll let ya know how it goes. I’d go bottomer shelf, but I’m scared 
The cheaper you go, the more you’d better be prepared for a bad-ass hangover. Amongst the other differences between high-shelf and bottom-bar liquor is filtering. The impurities in the cheap shit will kick your ass. This also applies to cheap beer and wine.
I can’t tell the difference between $8 whisky and $40 whisky. I buy whatever is cheap.
I, OTOH, can tell the difference. I’ll spend the cash or stay sober.
I tried Sobieski and IMHO thought it tasted like industrial solvent. Check out Ruskova vodka; it’s a true Russian vodka distilled 6 times (a bit of overkill) and is quite good and very inexpensive.
Might be this, but I’m still looking for it.
Tip: if it’s in a box, you can’t go wrong.
I am in Canada. I buy decent Irish and Bourbon when I want something I can drink neat (Bushmills in various incarnations depending on how rich I feel, and lately Dickle’s 12 year but Buffalo Trace and Maker’s Mark are in the mix, tho the speyside malts keep taking me back to Scotland), and a lot, like, a lot, like… beer is a thing… and when I just want to get fucked up without getting poorer or fatter I buy cheap vodka.
Americans probably wouldn’t recognize it as cheap, because of the price, but two hours of minimum wage will buy a fifth of it, and it does the job: it is tasteless as far as alcohol mixed with water can be, and it is the percentage alcohol advertised. I have not yet, in a long ass career of finding cheap vodka, found one that was horrible. They default to tasteless. I assume this is because we have regulations in place which require that.
Cheap vodka for the win, and anything that needs to be good neat is worth the money.