(August 27, 2015 at 10:16 pm)Exian Wrote: What if the cognac went on sale for $20? Would that bother you?
No, I would not be bothered by that at all. In fact, if my favorite Cognac went on sale for $20 a bottle, I would probably buy at least a dozen bottles to stock up, if they had them in the store. Maybe I would buy more if they had them.
In fact, I would be ecstatic if the Cognac I wanted went on sale like that.
(August 27, 2015 at 10:16 pm)Exian Wrote: Can you notice a huge difference in the two differently priced cognacs?
Yes. I rather wish I could not tell the difference between good Cognac and cheap Cognac, as it would save me a lot of money. Now, when it is used for cooking, the cheap stuff is fine. But drinking straight, it is significantly different. What I have found is that I need to spend $40+ on a bottle for me to like it. I can get away with a $25 bottle of single malt Scotch (though I prefer a $40+ bottle), but I do not care for what I can get in Cognac at that price. Courvoisier VSOP is just not as good as Hennessy Privilege VSOP. That level of Courvoisier is more than good enough for cooking, but for drinking straight, it is not that great.
Just to be clear, I have tried a variety of levels of Cognac and Scotch, and, generally, the higher the price, the more I like it. But I find that Scotch can be acceptable at a cheaper level than Cognac. And so is Irish whisky and rye (rye I can get probably the cheapest for something acceptable, but that may be because it is domestic).
(August 27, 2015 at 10:16 pm)Exian Wrote: I've noticed with wine that there are huge leaps in quality from the $9 on up to the $20-$30 bottles (to be expected, I suppose), but anything past that- the leaps in quality are too small to justify the leaps in price.
I agree that once one gets to a certain level of quality, going higher is not cost-effective. For me, the most I want to spend on a bottle of wine (at a wine shop; restaurants charge more for the same quality) is about $45, and that is for a good Champagne. Most of the wine I drink is less expensive than that. But other than one red that I have found that is remarkably good for its price, pretty much all of the wine I drink is over $10 per bottle, other than the wine used for making mulled wine (for that, cheap swill is fine, as the sugar and spices take care of any issues there are with it).
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
