As a bourbon fan (I don’t go so far as to call myself a connossieur), it drives me mad when I offer someone a glass of something really good- Woodford Reserve, Wild Turkey Heritage, etc- and they want to mix it with Coke. Nothing wrong with Bourbon and Coke at all, but that’s what Jim Beam and Real McCoy are for- not Top Shelf stuff, IMHO.
I would slightly disagree with this - if you accept an elite composed of the best and brightest in a particular discipline, you must also accept that the worse and duller aren’t going to be included in the group. I think it’s when those in the elite are there for dubious reasons - nepotism or great wealth perhaps - that the elite gets a bad name. It’s that injustice that really rankles in my opinion.
Only if that “elitism” stops people based on “elite” qualities that have nothing to do with a persons ability. For example, a company not hiring people because they don’t fit a particular stereotype.
I don’t drink bourbon, but the comparison holds good for some of the whiskies I do drink, and similarly there are plenty of generic blended Scotches that go just fine with ginger ale or whatever. 
My Father in law is an alum of Harvard, I wonder if that makes me elite enough for Harvard. He’s not rich and has made no donations to the school, so maybe not. 
This is the type of thread in which I refuse to participate!
People who travel first class might be called elitist but in the by-gone days anyone who traveled would be branded an elitist. What’s wrong with this arguement:
You travel by plane today - you’re an average American.
You travel by plane fifty years ago - you’re an elitist!
And that’s an example of being an elitist. It’s basically another word for being a snob.
But Guin, come on!
It’s not elitism to save your expensive top-shelf bourbon for sipping, and pulling out your serviceable workaday bourbon for bourbon and coke. Once you mix it with co-cola the qualities that differentiated the top-shelf bourbon with middle-shelf bourbon disappear. You get the exact same experience no matter what bourbon you use. So, if the experience is exactly the same, would you rather pay $10.00 per glass or $3.00 (numbers for example purposes only)?
If top-shelf bourbon and middle-shelf bourbon taste exactly the same to you, why would you ever buy top-shelf bourbon?
It’s one thing for someone to act as though they are entitled to a greater degree of authority or status by virtue of their being born into the upper class, or to disparage those with less refined tastes. But lately the Right has hijacked anti-elitest resentment and is using it to attack people like journalists, scientists, and educators.
People who make careers out of objectively gathering and diseminating information are more likely to be right and should be listened to. But conservatives often don’t like what they hear, so they smear the messenger in the only way they can–by calling them “elites” (they usually leave out the “ist”) and thus exploit the public’s natural resentment of “people who think they’re better than you”.
It’s all part of How to Behave When You’re Wrong.