Is there a scientifically detectable difference between high-price liquor and regular stuff?

The Straight Dope ^ | January 3, 2014 | Cecil Adams

[Slings and Arrows]

Dear Cecil:

I was in the Costco liquor section when I happened upon a locked display case with three bottles inside (one whisky, one cognac, one I can’t remember), each priced upwards of $2,500. I imagine anyone who bought and drank one of these would be heavily influenced by "buyer's bias" regarding the actual taste of the product; still, I’d think the difference would be great enough that an average, uneducated drinker could pick out the ultra-expensive bottle from a $30 one in a blind test. What can science tell us about why an extremely high-quality and typically older alcohol would be so much more pleasant to drink, and thus much more valuable?

— Morton Christopher

Cecil replies:

Science can tell us plenty about booze, Mort. However, the relevant discipline shifts as we rise in the price scale. At the low end, where we’re talking about beverages commonly drunk from paper bags, chemistry can easily demonstrate what separates rotgut from the decent stuff. Above a certain point, however, we find more useful insight in psychology, if you take my meaning. The question is where that shift occurs. In bitter moments I tend to say it’s around ten bucks a bottle, although having had a tasty if somewhat pricey Chateauneuf-du-Pape the other night I can see where you might objectively demonstrate that $100 was money well spent. But $2,500? Sorry, this is prima facie evidence of the madness of crowds.

With the exception of pure ethanol, alcoholic beverages are complex mixtures of chemicals derived from the raw materials plus the containers they’re aged and stored in. Variations in taste generally arise from differences in volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which readily vaporize at room temp when the container is opened and give the brew, vintage, or what have you its characteristic smell — not the common term, particularly among wine enthusiasts, but let’s call a spade a spade.

The VOCs potentially found in alcoholic beverages make for a long list. Most of the terms mean nothing to the nonspecialist, but since you asked, here are some things you might detect if your man cave is equipped with a mass spectrometer:

• Proanthocyanidins, tannin colloids, and flavan-3-ols all contribute bitterness and astringency to wine.
• “Nuttiness,” considered a desirable quality in Scotch whisky, can often be traced to the presence of pyrazine compounds, whereas 2-furanmethanol imparts an aroma variously reminiscent of popcorn, earth, and feet.
• Phenols contribute peatiness to Scotch, and Scotches made from malt smoked over peat fires acquire phenolic traits so distinctive chemists can sometimes identify the original peat bog. When researchers analyzed 1890s Scotch recovered a few years ago from Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic camp, its phenol profile was correctly traced to a bog in the Orkney Islands.

Still, while we know in a general way which VOCs are associated with what taste, that’s a long way from saying we can detail with any confidence the chemical differences separating an award-winning beverage from an OK one.

In many cases these differences are minute. For example, the subtle taste of “greenness” in a Sauvignon Blanc, an undesirable quality in other varieties of wine, arises from methoxypyrazine compounds, detectable by humans in the parts per trillion. It’s surely also true that taste is a result of the interplay between multiple VOCs, some of which chemists have yet to identify. The best means of judging quality, therefore, remains the human nose and palate.

These make for an imperfect instrument. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of wine tasting:

• In 2005 judges at the California State Fair Wine Competition were unknowingly served certain wines three different times on different days. Individual tasters‘ scores for the same wine varied widely, in some cases from 87 points (nothing special) to 95 (primo).
• In a blind tasting, 54 students in the wine program at the University of Bordeaux were tricked into perceiving a white wine as a red simply by adding food coloring to it.
• Con man Rudy Kurniawan fooled wine experts from around the world with his counterfeits of rare wines made with cheap Napa Valley product and photocopied labels. He was finally tripped up when he tried to auction faux vintages dated decades before the wine in question was ever actually produced.

Does that mean alleged differences in alcoholic beverages are BS? Depends on what you consider differences. When nonprofessional tasters were trained to use a standardized whisky-tasting vocabulary and then given samples of 40 blended Scotch whiskies, their assessments generally corresponded with the four categories of whisky being tested (deluxe, standard, cheap, and West Highland). In a separate study, the four categories were themselves found to have distinctive chemical signatures. In other words, it was possible to sense broad variations in quality, and those variations had a chemical basis.

On the other hand, consistently distinguishing a presumably exquisite $2,500 bottle from a merely excellent $100 one … eh, maybe somebody with an unusually sensitive palate could do it. You or me? That I doubt.

— Cecil Adams

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

“I think Evan Williams tastes great for the money....”

I disagree. I’d rather cough up the extra $5 or so and get Jim Beam, and if budget isn’t really a concern I’ll go with Maker’s Mark.

Evan Williams is nasty.

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

Two Buck Chuck (or is it now Three Buck Chuck? I haven’t bought any in a long time) is really good considering its price. Score one for cold fermentation...

[Slings and Arrows]

Sir Noel is crying.

[Slings and Arrows]

Scientists got troubles to drown, too.

[Slings and Arrows]

The bumvidence says otherwise.

http://bumwine.com/

[headsonpikes]

I would like to add a small comment about brandy and cognac. Unlike the other non-scotch ‘brown’ liquors, there is a sensible gradient of pricing, at least to $100 or so.

Avoid the cheapest brandies - E&J - Ack! Metaxa is an economical acquired taste. The slightly dearer French brandies are fine. At twice the price, Hennessey and Courvoisier are value for dollar as an introduction to cognacs. Once you decide you like cognac, it is worth trying a bottle of the $90+ stuff - they really are worth the price once you can appreciate them, imnsho...;^)

Sheesh!...I sound like Sideshow Bob!!!

Sip it slowly...

[Polynikes]

The vodka you are talking about from Texas is Tito's. Filtered 6 times. Skyy is filtered 5 times. Vodka has to be filtered at least 3 times thru activated charcoal to clean up the cogeners. Everybodies preferences are different depending on the taste and source ( water/wheat/corn etc.

A single malt should be aged 10yrs in a cask minimum to be labeled as such. After that the price goes up exponentially as approximately 2% is lost per year,the angels share. So you pay for the distilleries time in cask

[Ouderkirk]

Obviously some of the “better” stuff has had more refinement, but the underlying taste of tequila, gin, whiskey, etc, is essentially the same for whatever it is.

It then becomes a matter of taste. Which do you prefer.

As for the next morning effects for overindulgence, that’s on you. ;-)

A true hangover is technically “alcohol induced hypoglycemia” where the alcohol strips the sugar out of your bloodstream, and you suffer the symptoms of that until you can get your blood-sugar levels stabilized.

[JoeProBono]

BRITA have been asked about filtering alcohol before and our understanding (although we do not run tests on this) is that there may be a very slight reduction in alcohol content if filtered through a BRITA cartridge but the ion exchange resin will not have an effect on alcohol.

The ion exchange resin selectively removes certain metal ions such as copper, lead, calcium and aluminium from the water and as a weak acid cation exchanger ions removed are replaced with hydrogen ions, which combine with other ions and eventually form H20 and C02.

I hope this answers your query.

Yours sincerely

Rachel Laycock
BRITACare Manager
Brita Water Filter Systems Ltd

http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/general-info/filtering-spirits-using-brita-type-filters/

[dhs12345]

My introduced me to Breckenridge Bourbon. I love it.

I am mostly a vodka drinker.

I wasn’t a big fan of whiskey before but now I pick up a bottle for special occasions. Doesn’t last me long though. :(

https://www.breckenridgedistillery.com/hooch/awards/

[mosaicwolf]

I have seen bottles of wine at Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, FL that cost $15,000.00. You read it right folks. THat is 15K! Never could figure out what kind of a person would spend that kind of money on wine.

[Slings and Arrows]

I have seen bottles of wine at Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, FL that cost $15,000.00. You read it right folks. THat is 15K! Never could figure out what kind of a person would spend that kind of money on wine.

P. T. Barnum said that there was one born every minute.

[jjotto]

Reminds me of Lew Rothman, America’s largest purveyor of cigars, responding to all the extremely limited runs of $20+ cigars: “I might run out of $10 cigars, but I would NEVER run out of $20 cigars!”

[ansel12]

That has been my exact same experience.

[loungitude]

Takes out about 25% per pass.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This does not make sense. Please elaborate.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

My brother and I were working on importing soju. It is a Korean liquor which is exempt from import duties. It is a bit rough in that it contains way too much fuselage alcohols. We were testing if the harshness could be tamed by filtration. Testing with Britta and pur filters. Each filtration pulled about 25% of the ethyl alcohol tested with a hygrometer. Both filters contain ion exchange pellets. When filtered through plain activated carbon, no drop in ethyl alcohol. I then tested it through some ion exchange resin pellets I had left over from a soft water system recharge. Same result. About 25% less alcohol based on specific gravity. Don’t know why it happens, but it does.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Please see previous post on this thread.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Fuselage = fusel. Damned autocorrect

[loungitude]

Thank you for responding.
The change in density that you observed does not equate to a capture of ethanol by the filter.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Ok, then we drank the resulting liquor. 4 pass stuff. Very drinkable but less potent than most wine. Starts out 40 proof. Then 30. Then about 22. Then a little over 16. About 8% alcohol.

We could drink it like a porter. Like a stout beer of equal abv. We could drink it like a Chardonnay or anything else with about 8% alcohol by volume.

Sorry, but it just is. Don’t ask me to explain how or why, but it pulls about 25% of the alcohol per pass till it saturates whatever is bonding to the alcohol.