And was it worth it?
My ex.
Really old scotch. I don’t remember the distillery or the sticker price, but I think it was in the neighborhood of $100 / glass. I had it at a fancy party.
Worth $100 / glass? I don’t think so, but it was very good. Best scotch I’ve ever had, not that I’m much of a connoisseur. I get why rich people like it.
Sounds like a MacAllen 20.
They tend to go in the $80 to $100 range for a shot at the bar depending on what their going prices are.
The good news is that if you can save up a little bit, you can usually pick up a bottle for like $250, sometimes a little less if you have a friend that is in the military and can get one for you at the PAX or at a duty-free store if you’re somewhere where you can cross the border.
I had never really been into whiskeys or hard alcohol at all, but my brother split a bottle of MacAllen 20 when we hung out for a weekend before I moved away from my hometown, and I still remember the fact that I could still taste the cinnamon and spices in my teeth the next day, even though I had brushed my teeth (And flossed!) since drinking it.
Maybe so, it was almost 20 years ago and we were well into our cups at that point so it’s a bit hazy. It wasn’t cinnamon-y; I remember thinking it reminded me of the stuff that Treebeard gives Merry and Pippin to drink, real earthy and mossy, but good. Funny to think I could buy a 20-year scotch and it would have been barreled (casked? idk) at around that time. I probably wouldn’t even if I had the money though. It was good, but not that good.
I had a $150 shot of vodka once.
It was just as terrible as the cheapest shit I’ve ever had.
The only vodka I’ve ever had that tasted good - enjoyable and not just something I tolerated for the alcohol - was a shot of buffalograss(?) flavored vodka at a polish restaurant in London.
It’s called Żubrówka, and it’s flavored with bison grass
It was delicious. Apparently can’t get it here in the states.
One of the weirdest things about that experience was that I witnessed some anti-polish racism? Like this British guy walked in and was just savage to all of the employees. Didn’t realize hating polish people was still a thing.
They do sell a version of it here, but it can be pretty hard to track down, it’s definitely not available in my state (PA) But I’ve seen it in a couple stores in other states.
I think bison grass isn’t allowed to be imported to the US, so they use something else that’s pretty close in flavor. For a while I think they were branding it as “Zu” but that may have changed.
Some friends organized a set of vodka flights once (house party, so the cost was just the bottles of vodka).
I was shocked at how much difference you could taste between different brands/tiers of vodka. I had always figured that vodka’s whole purpose was to be sort of a “blank slate alcohol”, great as a base for mixers or getting drunk efficiently but not really something you’d appreciate on its own.
Vodka should be as pure an ethyl alcohol as possible. Flavorings make it less pure, and is akin to Gins. Look up the marketing masterpiece that is Grey Goose vodka. It’s pretty much the same bullshit as premium Gins. Basically cheap clear alcohol with flavorings. Whiskys, Rums, Brandies on the other hand can have decades of maturing, making them way more expensive to produce.
There’s the thing, we weren’t taste testing flavored vodka. They were all supposed to be plain ordinary vodka.
Not the same as flavorless, though. Kind of a trip.
All vodka has flavor added back in. Well, fients or water at least. Vodka is distilled to a much higher percentage than its sold at, so there is a process to water it down, and that part can change and alter the final product.
There’s a fancy grocery store near me, and in the deli, they had acorn-fed organic-raised Iberico Pork charcutery.
It was, I want to say, $160 a pound.
It was my birthday, and getting them to slice it as thin as they could, I bought a tenth of a pound of this $160 a pound Iberico pork.
It was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten in my entire life.
I shared it with my girlfriend and she almost cried at how good it was.
The law says that Jamón Iberico de Bellota, free range acorn foraging, not fed, has to have a minimum of 19 acres per pig. Ibérico pigs are way more athletic and are not fattened, so their yield is way lower than white pigs. Curing is a minimum of 20 months in open air mountain curing buildings, etc…
You can easily pay 600-1000€ in Spain for a whole leg. 6Kg. aprox. and that includes the bones, skin, and other unusable parts. The price is not unjustified.
Jabugo for the win! It is such a special favor it feels almost… obscene idk. But I agree, it is the best.
Paracetamol (500€/kg)
Printer Ink $38,000/Kg
You’re not supposed to drink it neat.
Cheap liquor that cost me an ambulance
Oh shit I’ve had ambulance Whisky too!
Celebrated getting a good paying job by going to Sushi Kashiba in Seattle. Nearly $700 for the two of us, about 1/3 of that was fancy saki. It was worth it except for I couldn’t eat normal sushi for over a year after because no matter where we went it all tasted cheap in comparison
A glass of 1965 Chateau Cheval Blanc. We were being entertained by friends in their house which had a significant wine cellar. I protested repeatedly that I was not going to appreciate it, but they insisted it was for friends. It was very nice. I normally spend about £15 a bottle on wine, that bottle was worth about a thousand times that.
As an aside, they have a rack with bottles reserved for celebrating some individual’s deaths. I’ll let you guess who.
Drank a $600 bottle of champagne. I was young and burning my money on dumb shit. It was not worth it.
I didnt and still dont have the palate, but an $8 bottle of passion pop tasted just as good.
Corporate customer dinner in Vegas, footed by sales director, who insisted on ordering the most expensive bottle of scotch on the menu.
It was pretty good, but pretty sure not worth the high 4-digits.
He did get to close the sale 🤷🏻♂️
Some kind of Indian dessert that was covered in gold leaf at a rich older family friends birthday. I had one out of curiosity but it didn’t add anything to the experience except sadness at the waste
I’ve had gold foil before and it’s just like eating aluminum foil.
There is no difference other than the fact that the glitter in your poop will be a different color the next day.
Aluminum can be highly reactive, gold is one of the leat reactive metals, so it should be pretty tasteless.
Tacky even /s
Is eating aluminum foil a common experience for everyone or am I the weirdo that just eats what’s wrapped by the foil?
tbf as a kid I sometimes chew on aluminium foil wrapper of candies (back when they wrap some candies in aluminium) to extract the last dregs of candy. so I kind of can empathize lol
Someone once treated me to actual Wagyu steak in Japan. It was good but certainly not hundreds of dollars good; marinades are cheap and makes my usual cheap meats taste wonderful.
wagyu is just the type of cattle. There are all kinds of varieties, grades, prices, etc.
It’s been used in marketing and has lost it’s meaning, but I’m referring to the original is that type where the cattle are given wine and massaged or something.
I think that piece of meat was something like 60,000 yen, or roughly $700 at the time given the exchange rate of the time. But it’s been a while and I didn’t have to pay so… not certain.
Domestically, I think the meaning is clear, but overseas not so much, yeah. I think only one single farm ever did (or at least claimed to have done) the whole beer + massage thing.
I don’t think 60k/$700 would be right because the yen has so rarely been stronger than the dollar and I don’t think it’s ever been that strong. (you might have it backward with 70k JPY being around $600 USD), not that that’s the important part of the story; that’s a lot of money either way.
No, I know the yen is generally weaker but this was like 15 years ago. I had to double check because it’s was usually 100 yen to 1 dollar but somehow it was 90 yen to a dollar that year. They really screwed up after the pandemic though so it’s so much worse now and will probably get even worse under the current admin.
Side note: 和wa (Japanese) 牛gyuu (beef).
While most people will rant about Kobe beef, I am rather keen towards Matsuzaka’s. And prefer slightly leaner meat than the most expensive stuff that is very marbled (and tastes very greasy).
That said, a choice piece can be cut with a butter knife and it was so tasty you can eat it without salt or sauce.
Yep. I don’t eat beef much anymore, but Maesawagyuu from Oshu city in Iwate is tasty and probably the most famous one close to us.
Oh, to be fortunate enough to get some through the furusato nozei program…
Real A5 Wagyu melts in your mouth, it’s absolutely a different result than marinating. You wouldn’t want to eat a whole steak of that though, way too rich. You want a few ounces at most, but those few ounces are divine. If you could stomach a whole steak, it almost certainly wasn’t A5.
The texture certainly was better, sure. I just remember I wasn’t that impressed by the flavor. I’m used to marinated flank steak which is considerably more sinewy but made up for with seasoning and spices.
Also it was pretty small, and I shared it with my partner. I wanna say 8oz? The guy who bought it to treat us was a real Midwestern American though, so it’s possible he was bamboozled.
Three star michelin place. bottomless dom with the appetizer.
Which, is not actually really any better than bottom shelf andre brut or cooks and such. Any good wine should be less than $20 a bottle, with exceptions that were brought out for each other course. The name, price, and dick waggling that comes with it is the point. So if you never get the illustrious Dom Perignon, don’t fucking worry, just make sure your shit’s chilled all the way through before you get to the function.
Never knew raw oysters could actually be good. The presentation and explanation of each dish and subsequent wine pairing was great. Fabulous time, worth it. I think it was something like $700, all told? Bucket list of my partner’s, so double points.
SOMETHING ELSE that’s super fucking worth it: Taking a cross-country trip on the Amtrak in a sleeper car. It’s first class, super bicycle friendly, and included in the ticket price is three full meals a day, with a boozy drink at dinner. Last I checked, it’s over a grand from boston to the west coast, but it’s like living in steamer trunk for a few days and is just super fucking rad
Bottomless dom
I was thinking of something else for a long time.
Two things for different reasons.
I had a meal plan in college that drew from an account linked to my university ID. There were vending machines that could charge your meal plan account when you swiped your ID. I bought a bag of spicy Cheetos, orverdrafted, and had to pay $50.
I cracked my tooth on a lifesaver and had to get a crown for $1000.
12-year old single malt scotch. I bought a bottle as a birthday gift for a friend and we shared a glass.
He decided he didn’t like the taste and drank the rest with coke, so obviously next time I’ll buy him a bottle of turpentine and a monogramed shot glass.
Oof, just give it back at that point.
