I don’t have a lot of experience, but stay away from Skol.
Smirnoff isn’t too bad, I think it is $19 for a 1.75L handle.
I’d just stay away from vodka, period. It’s like the White Zinfandel/Bud Light of spirits. There are precious few mixed drinks that actually use it (I can think of maybe 5 off the top of my head- Cosmopolitan, Moscow Mule, White Russian and Harvey Wallbanger, and it’s father, the Screwdriver), and most of what it’s used for is shots and relatively lame mixed drinks.
Most other spirits actually have flavors of their own- if you’re a vodka person, I’d look into white rum. It’s pleasant, not overly assertive, and there are a LOT of mixed drinks out there using it that are both very good, and easy to make.
Excuse me? Bloody Marys! Not to mention vodka tonics, vodka rickeys, vodka and any juice you care to imagine, etc.
White rum, OTOH, is garbage.
Vodka’s… non-offensive. That’s about all you can really say about it, positive or negative. It’s like the tofu of the alcoholic world. It’s not a note in any mixed drinks that I can think of, since you know, it doesn’t taste like anything on its own.
Which is why it’s pretty much relegated to basically spiking juices and sodas like teenagers at the prom, or being a pale, pallid substitute in a lot of drinks whose true recipes call for gin (Martini, Bloody Mary, Rickeys, etc…)
You may think that, if all you’ve ever had are lame Cuba Libres and ghastly neon daiquiris from Bourbon Street joints. Go have a real daiquiri or a La Floridita, or a Mary Pickford, and see if you still agree that white rum’s "garbage.
Had them. Moderately interesting. But white rum as a whole is still garbage. Now a good reposado or anejo is another story, but those are for sipping more than they are for mixing.
And anybody who thinks gin belongs in a Bloody Mary is obviously deranged. 