In this episode we run through some of the most popular brands and rate them best to worst.
These results may surprise you.
In this episode we run through some of the most popular brands and rate them best to worst.
These results may surprise you.
John Vieira (00:01):
This is the house made podcast. We're your hosts, John Vieira and Nick Boban. We're here to cover your questions about home bartending, so let's get into it.
Nick Boban (00:22):
Hey. Welcome back guys to the house made podcast. This is episode number 7. Today we're going to be learning about vodka, teaching you about some vodka and blind taste testing 4 different vodkas that everybody debates on.
John Vieira (00:38):
Yeah. This is going to be cool. We've talked before about the time...
Nick Boban (00:44):
Two years ago we actually did this. Yeah.
John Vieira (00:46):
Yeah. And it's been a long time. I think it's going to be a really good recap for me personally and I'm hoping to learn a little bit about some of the differences between these as well, because you think of vodka, you think, "All right, it's just it's vodka." But there's a lot of difference, aparently.
Nick Boban (01:04):
Well, I don't know. There's not a whole bunch of difference. So what we did first, or what I did first was start by looking up the United States law that... I think it's, I don't remember exactly where it was. It was a bunch of numbers, and it is "What is vodka?" Like, what is vodka? So essentially what the United States says, which differs a little bit from the European union. But since we live in America, it has to essentially be a neutral spirit that's distilled up to 95% alcohol by volume. So it's ethanol. And then cut with water and bottled at 40% alcohol by volume. That's basically... That's the jist. To be labeled vodka, it can never be rested in wood, at any point, unless it's an paraffin lined barrels for the bottle and bond process, which is a different subject altogether. But I thought was really interesting is they would allow you to add up to two grams per liter of sugar, which is kind of a lot.
John Vieira (02:16):
That's kind of a shit ton.
Nick Boban (02:17):
And up to one gram per liter of citric acid. So that's how, that's how they're making the Citron vodkas.
John Vieira (02:25):
Right, which makes sense cause you look at like what's on the shelf and everything is, Oh, this has real fruit juice in this and that. And it's like, but it's in many cases, at least it's still 40% alcohol. And so you're like, how the fuck? But also some of the absolute juice ones that come out recently, they are not, I think they're like 35% alcohol or something. They're slightly less.
Nick Boban (02:48):
It would be interesting to see if they're still labeled as vodka. I haven't, I haven't looked at those labels.
John Vieira (02:52):
I think they are.
Nick Boban (02:52):
They are? Okay. There was, they said that the EU allows you to go down to like 37.6% and still be called vodka.
John Vieira (03:02):
Oh, maybe they're riding the line then.
Nick Boban (03:05):
And I... I mean, I looked at like Cornell law, so it could have looked at an outdated code too.
John Vieira (03:11):
I mean, I'm sure it's...
Nick Boban (03:13):
It's pretty similar. Pretty much the jist is it's... I think it even said up to two grains, so it's two grains distilled to ethanol and then cut with water bottled at 40%. That's essentially a vodka. So we went through these ones. So we're going to kind of blind taste... Well, not kind of, we ARE going to blind taste test Seagrams, Grey Goose, Tito's and Absolut today.
John Vieira (03:38):
Yeah. Let's start by just doing... We'll run through this lineup, give it a little sip, acclimate the palate. We're not going to try to guess what these are. We're just going to taste them. See what the texture is like, see what the flavor is like and then maybe we'll learn a little bit about each one of these.
Nick Boban (03:59):
Okay. So for everybody that's listening at home, we have all four of these glasses lined up with...
John Vieira (04:05):
Not in order.
Nick Boban (04:06):
Not in order. We don't know what, we poured them all, labeled. We labeled, poured them, mixed them up, covered the bottom piece of tape up that has the name on it. So we can't see it and then numbered all the glasses after we'd mixed them. So we're going to talk about glass one, two, three, and four, but we're not quite sure what they are.
John Vieira (04:25):
Yeah. We have no idea. And at the end we can also rank them.
Nick Boban (04:28):
Yeah. We'll rank them best to worst, for our palate, I guess. Yeah. So, first off. Okay. So let's try number one. And let's also talk since, mind you, these don't correlate, but I have a little bit of how each spirit is made so I want to talk about it too, so let's start by talking about Tito's. So first off, with this number one glass, I would like to note how It has a good amount of leg to it, actually. So legs are when you swirl it around the glass and that little runs that come down off the, off wherever the wash line was, it usually indicates oil content.
John Vieira (05:10):
Yeah. It looks pretty good.
Nick Boban (05:12):
Pretty oily let's uh, Yeah. Smells like vodka.
John Vieira (05:18):
Smells like vodka. Yeah. That's the...
Nick Boban (05:20):
It smells like ethanol is what it smells like because everything was stripped, bringing it up to 95%. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Number one. Pretty mellow. It is oily. It's got a good like...
John Vieira (05:50):
It's got a nice texture. It's almost got, it's almost like a sweetness to it.
Nick Boban (05:54):
It does. Well, as we know, we can have up to two grams worth of sugar. No one's going to fucking admit to that.
John Vieira (05:59):
That's interesting though, because that makes sense for products that are marketed in such a way, but for just straight up, all four of these are just straight up, no flavor. I've never...
Nick Boban (06:12):
Noticed them to be sweet, right?
John Vieira (06:13):
I think in all the times that I've had vodka, it's not been like a controlled environment. And so like, I don't think I would notice the sweet, but that is what I would consider pretty sweet.
Nick Boban (06:26):
I would too.
John Vieira (06:27):
And I just had a drink of water and it's like, way... And it's very, it's actually a really smooth.
Nick Boban (06:32):
Yeah. It's, it's uh, not bitey whatsoever.
John Vieira (06:35):
Interesting.
Nick Boban (06:35):
Number one. Number one was okay.
John Vieira (06:37):
Okay. All right. Interesting.
Nick Boban (06:41):
Okay. So for the point of what we're doing, we're essentially, I think talking more or less, only about two grains. So Tito's claims that they make their product with 100% corn.
John Vieira (06:54):
Yeah. So gluten-free.
Nick Boban (06:56):
Gluten-free uh, okay. So, I mean, technically when you distill to ethanol, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's fucking gluten-free anyway.
John Vieira (07:04):
Oh, I have no doubt. I just mean as far as marketing. If something is literally ethanol...
Nick Boban (07:11):
I don't think there's gluten left in it.
John Vieira (07:13):
It's nothing else.
Nick Boban (07:14):
Technically, I guess the argument would be, there's still 95. There's 5% impurities in it.
John Vieira (07:20):
I mean, yeah. I guess.
Nick Boban (07:21):
I would have to look up, I heard that the FDA changed... Anyway, that's a debate for a different day.
John Vieira (07:27):
I would just go off of like the taste and the brand that you like. If that happens to be Tito's, that's great. Don't do it just because you're worried that the gluten in it's going to attack you because you're talking about like trace amounts, if any.
Nick Boban (07:40):
Okay. So Tito's 100% corn. They use a potstill, which I thought was interesting. They're the only brand that we have up here that's pot stille., Everything else is column stilled. So pot stills, for you guys listening at home, is closer to like how whiskey is made.
John Vieira (07:59):
Right, right. Six times distilled.
Nick Boban (08:00):
Uh, also tequila. They six times distill it.
John Vieira (08:04):
That's a lot of times.
Nick Boban (08:05):
So, and usually on most of these processes, it's the second to third distillation, will actually bring it up to proof. So on the second or third distillation, you'll hit 95%. It's the extra times distilled is where a lot of these vodka brands go like, Oh, it makes it smoother. Each time you distill it.
John Vieira (08:24):
Yeah, more pure and stuff like that.
Nick Boban (08:26):
Which is crazy because you're talking about taking 95% and making 95%. I think the highest you can go is like 97.5%, like chemistry based. So you can't really go any higher than where you went. Anyways.
Nick Boban (08:42):
So I'm also not... I'm also not a distiller, so maybe it does have something to do with it. Now they are cutting their distillate with limestone artisan well-water out of Austin, Texas. So that is going to be one of the only things that gives it a lot of its flavor.
John Vieira (09:01):
Hmm. Okay.
Nick Boban (09:03):
So I mean...
John Vieira (09:03):
Limestone artisan well-water.
Nick Boban (09:06):
Yeah. Which is very similar terminology that you hear to the whiskey guys.
John Vieira (09:10):
So with limestone, what kind of flavor are we talking about? Does it impart any, uh, obviously there's a mineral flavor, but what specifically are those flavors? Do we know?
Nick Boban (09:18):
Man, I don't know. So it would be interesting to go lick a limestone rock and just kind of...
John Vieira (09:23):
See, I'm picturing like salty. When I think of mineral stuff, I think of what, which obviously to a certain degree, that can't necessarily be true, but that's just where my brain goes.
Nick Boban (09:33):
Well, just think about well-water. Everybody here, at least in Idaho, has had well-water. Somebody you know has been on a well.
John Vieira (09:38):
Well-water is good.
Nick Boban (09:39):
And it is. It has this property to it. And it has some body to it as well.
John Vieira (09:46):
Yeah. So when you, when you get those fancy reverse osmosis water and all this stuff that the grocery store...
Nick Boban (09:52):
That's just stripped. There's nothing left.
John Vieira (09:54):
They're stripped and a lot of times it's alienating how little mineral content is in there. And in some cases the drinking water is the same as the manufacturer's distilled water, but then they add the minerals back in for taste.
Nick Boban (10:11):
100%. So that's what I found with all of these brands. It's their... Well, aside from one, it's all about the grain and the water, cause that's all that's in there. So there's two parts. It's not aged. There's nothing crazy about it. It's very controlled.
John Vieira (10:29):
So once again, to clarify, glass one... We don't know what it is, but it's not necessarily Tito's. We're just speaking about these out of order. So next step we'll be talking about Absolut, which comes from... Sweden?
Nick Boban (10:44):
Okay, hold on. Let me try this. Yeah, Sweden.
John Vieira (10:50):
A-H-U-S is the name of the place.
Nick Boban (10:51):
We tried to pronounce it and we weren't even going to attempt.
John Vieira (10:54):
Yeah. It sounded like I was almost sneezing. Okay. So come from Sweden. Okay. So glass 2, whichever one this is.
Nick Boban (11:02):
It's hotter on the nose.
John Vieira (11:05):
Hotter on the nose. What are the legs doing? How's it look?
Nick Boban (11:11):
Almost no legs.
John Vieira (11:13):
Almost nothing. Okay.
Nick Boban (11:14):
It's got a little tiny bit, but the like oil content was nothing like glass 1 and even glass 1 is broke now. All the legs have broke.
John Vieira (11:23):
Yep. Yeah. I can see that. It looks just, It looks messy. So hotter on the nose. Any of that sweetness?
Nick Boban (11:36):
There's still a weird sweetness to it, but way less.
John Vieira (11:40):
This one smells terrible. It like, it still smells like ethanol, but it also smells like...
Nick Boban (11:46):
Like almost like rubbing alcohol?
John Vieira (11:49):
Yeah. It's got, it's got something nasty going on.
Nick Boban (11:53):
It's harsh. Yeah. It is harsh.
John Vieira (11:55):
Whatever that is, I don't like.
Nick Boban (11:57):
It has a little bit of that same alcohol flavor bite to it in the back.
John Vieira (12:01):
The legs are there now though.
Nick Boban (12:02):
They are coming in, yeah.
John Vieira (12:04):
That's interesting.
Nick Boban (12:07):
I can feel that one a lot more in my chest, too. It didn't go down as easy.
John Vieira (12:13):
Nowhere near as sweet.
Nick Boban (12:15):
No, it's not as sweet at all.
John Vieira (12:17):
In fact, almost a little bit more of the salinity. You definitely feel it going down. You feel it going ALL the way down.
Nick Boban (12:27):
And the after taste kind of lingers in your mouth.
John Vieira (12:32):
Kind of front of the palate.
Nick Boban (12:33):
Very ethanol-y.
John Vieira (12:35):
I'm actually... After the fact, I'm getting a little sweetness. It didn't taste nearly as sweet as that one at first.
Nick Boban (12:42):
It's not as sweet up front.
John Vieira (12:42):
But it didn't dissipate. It's like it's actually even more prominent now. So it's building. Hmm. Interesting. Let's see how long it takes the legs to break on that one.
Nick Boban (12:52):
I think they already started. Anyways. Okay. So then talking in our next one, Absolut. It's from Sweden. This one is made with winter wheat. So apparently this is a grain that you plant in the fall. You allow it to grow pretty much through the winter, under the snow, through next spring and summer and harvest it the next fall. So it's a full year crop rotation, which is weird from everything else that's planted in spring, harvested in fall. Grey Goose happens to use the same thing and their marketing material was all about how that winter wheat was superior bread making wheat to begin with. Um, Absolut...
John Vieira (13:39):
Well, Grey Goose being from France. So France can be a little hoity toity, BUT they're also kind of like the undisputed kings in a lot of spirit industries. Spirit industries, culinary industries, I mean...
Nick Boban (13:52):
That's true. But for Absolut, they're claiming that they were some of the first ones to invent the continuous still, which is a process that you make ethanol. So instead of distilling it and then emptying and re putting your distillate and starting over, your distillate feeds right back into the base of your still, and it just continuously runs until you hit your alcohol percentage that you want. Okay. So it's not... It's hard to say how many times they would have distilled it or what their distillation run is, but they market it as, "Oh, it's a thousand times distilled because it's continuous. Up to infinite."
John Vieira (14:41):
Right. Okay.
Nick Boban (14:42):
Anyways. And that's a column still, so that's a big industrial style still.
John Vieira (14:47):
I don't know how ostentatious Swedish people are. I like to think of them as very nice, generous people. I love their meatballs. Is Ikea Swedish or are they?
Nick Boban (15:00):
Yes. I think so.
John Vieira (15:03):
If that's not correct, don't judge me.
Nick Boban (15:06):
Don't judge us. We do live in Idaho.
John Vieira (15:07):
So the reason why my brain associates that, is because they have fantastic meatballs in Ikea. And so I don't know...
Nick Boban (15:17):
They are Swedish meatballs, they do market them like that.
John Vieira (15:20):
So maybe it is, uh, anyway. Okay. So that's Absolut. Let's jump into the next glass and then talk about how fucking similar Grey Goose is on paper, at least.
Nick Boban (15:32):
Okay. So number three, let's see. Number three's legs.
John Vieira (15:41):
So seemingly nothing, but...
New Speaker (15:44):
I mean, literally nothing, when you look at it.
John Vieira (15:46):
But look, you can...
Nick Boban (15:47):
I mean, there's a little bit, Yeah. But like this side, for example, there's nothing going on with it at all. Um, let's see, man. Uh, okay. Okay.The smell is a little bit different.
John Vieira (16:10):
For those of you not watching this. He was smelling between glass 2 and glass 3.
Nick Boban (16:15):
I'm just... It's so similar that I'm trying to get a baseline for it, you know? Cause we're talking about...
John Vieira (16:21):
I mean, the differences between 1 and 2 were pretty dramatic so is this one a little bit more in line with number 2 or number 1?
Nick Boban (16:28):
This is... Nose is way more in line with number two, I think.
John Vieira (16:32):
So kind of that rubbing alcohol, medicinal, ethanol, nothing pleasant, which we don't really expect anything pleasant from any of these.
Nick Boban (16:45):
Still get some of that sweetness. I got a LOT of that. Look, all the legs broke already. Okay. I got a lot of that nose burn, almost.
John Vieira (16:53):
This one ,to me, unless I'm just desensitized to it now has way less nose burn than number 2. Like way less, but maybe I just fried my face already.
Nick Boban (17:06):
Man. I don't... Trying to pick out a difference. I think that one's sweeter to me. I think that one's closer to taste like number 1.
John Vieira (17:20):
Yup. It has. It has that devious vodka sweetness that I never expected and didn't know existed. This one smells Like a lighter version of number 2, but tastes VERY similar to number 1. I think.
Nick Boban (17:40):
I think you're on the right track. I think we're on the right track.
John Vieira (17:43):
This is a very different activity than tasting whiskey, like I learned to do last time. This is...
Nick Boban (17:47):
"What does this taste like?" Sugar and Wheat. "How much of each?" Little bit? I don't know. I don't know. It's not like I'm associating blueberries and blackberries and fucking rich, dark caramel colors...
John Vieira (18:02):
There's almost nothing to go on, which is kind of why it's such a great comparison because, just to mention here for any of you that are not familiar, there's quite a price difference between these.
Nick Boban (18:13):
Super price. Which, we'll get into in just a second.
John Vieira (18:16):
Each of these is a liter, mind you. So when these prices come into play, we're talking straight up across the board price per ounce being...
Nick Boban (18:24):
Dramatically different.
John Vieira (18:25):
Dramatically different. So I'm interested to see how this plays out.
Nick Boban (18:30):
Okay. So Grey Goose and Absolut are the literal exact same thing on paper. The difference is your location. So still winter wheat, but it comes out of France, still spring water, but it's coming out of France, still continuous column still just out of France. So we're talking about the two products making or claiming to make almost the same thing. Just different regions.
John Vieira (18:56):
Right. We have talked about this before though, where actually the last episode specifically, just because somebody has a recipe to something doesn't mean they're going to make it as well or know how to make it the same way.
Nick Boban (19:09):
True.
John Vieira (19:09):
So there is variance that comes in with that. Not saying one's necessarily better than the other, but the recipe could potentially be different. Righ? So yeah, I'm just, I'm really curious to see which one is which, and if I thought they were like similar at all.
Nick Boban (19:32):
All right. So now on to number 4.
John Vieira (19:34):
Glass number 4. Okay.
Nick Boban (19:39):
I don't know if I'm desensitized to it, but I'm not getting any nose.
John Vieira (19:42):
We might just be fried at this point.
Nick Boban (19:44):
We might be fried.
John Vieira (19:44):
What about the legs?
Nick Boban (19:45):
Let's see. Legs... I mean, they're starting, but it's almost nothing too.
John Vieira (19:56):
Number 1 was the leggiest.
Nick Boban (19:56):
For sure cause this one is just instantly... Everything else kinda starts.
John Vieira (20:04):
But that one was definitely...
Nick Boban (20:05):
Definitely the oiliest. Yeah. This one, I'm starting to get a little bit more now, but, okay. I still get some of that sweetness. It's the classic fucking alcohol... But yeah. It's man, when you're so, so similar it's really hard to pull out any new information. It was hard for my brain...
John Vieira (20:34):
Yeah. I need to take a fat sip of water before I jump into this one.
Nick Boban (20:46):
Very sweet, again.
John Vieira (20:48):
So this one, to me is hotter on the nose than glass 3. So two I think was still the hottest. Glass 3 was very, very little.
Nick Boban (21:02):
So this one, I'm getting a lot of sweet, like number 1. Yeah. And just as John's tasting it, I don't really know. I can't a hundred percent quite...
John Vieira (21:26):
Yeah. A lot of, um... A lot of sweetness. Way more sweetness than I ever really gave vodka credit for.
Nick Boban (21:39):
Oh yeah. I don't know.
John Vieira (21:40):
I don't know which one is sweeter between 1 and 4, but I think...
Speaker 1 (21:45):
God...
John Vieira (21:46):
So, uh, in my opinion, so far, 1 and 4 have very, very similar sweetness levels. 1 and 3 actually had, I think even a little bit closer flavors to each other and 2, at this point, kind of seems like the odd ball.
Nick Boban (22:10):
Two is the most different from the lineup itself. Okay. So let's talk about Seagrams, which is our last one on here. This is the budget one that we put in and there wasn't a whole bunch of information that I could really find. They're coming out of Indiana, I think is what I ultimately decided on. They're made with American grain out of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, like...
John Vieira (22:43):
The Midwest.
Nick Boban (22:44):
The Midwest. They're five times column distilled, but they're the only ones that are using a reverse osmosis water and not some kind of artesan or artesian well of some kind. They're saying it's local water, but then it's reverse osmosis filtered, which means... I would just assume that it's just some kind of city water or something that they're pushing out.
John Vieira (23:12):
Yeah. I mean, and not to be nitpicky, but it's a budget product, right?
Nick Boban (23:17):
Okay. So when we're talking about price, we're talking about Seagram's being what? $11 or $12.
John Vieira (23:24):
Yeah. Let's just call it $12. For a 1000 ml.
Nick Boban (23:28):
Yeah. And then Grey Goose I think is on the other extreme where it was, what like 30 something?
John Vieira (23:33):
Yeah. We should have wrote this down. So Grey Goose, I want to say is like $36. Like between $35 to $40. Like upper, mid thirties probably.
Nick Boban (23:48):
Tito's was in the high twenties for liter, right? Or low twenties. $22?
John Vieira (23:56):
Yeah. I think $22. That sounds pretty close.
Nick Boban (23:58):
And Absolut...
John Vieira (23:59):
Absolut, I think is very on par with Tito's, price-wise.
Nick Boban (24:02):
So yeah, they're almost the same.
John Vieira (24:04):
Pending sales promotions, things like that. I think you're talking about price per ounce being very similar between those two.
Nick Boban (24:09):
Okay. So that's where we're going on paper. Absolut and Grey Goose are the same. Tito's is the most different and Seagram's we have the least information about.
John Vieira (24:22):
Yeah. Seagram's is a lot more mysterious.
Nick Boban (24:26):
It's $12 a bottle, like there's no one seeking it out.
John Vieira (24:30):
It's an upper well product.
Nick Boban (24:32):
Absolutely.
John Vieira (24:33):
It's far beyond. It's actually pretty good for what it is. We'll see how it does in this taste test, but it's far beyond a lot of well products. But everything else here being a premium spirit.
Nick Boban (24:47):
Or at least at least a call spirit.
John Vieira (24:50):
Well, yeah. Yeah. I guess I don't even know how they break that shit up anymore. Like where it's like... They're like "This is premium." And that's supposed to be the apex and then like, "Oh no, that's actually two levels below what the top is."
Nick Boban (24:59):
"This is ultra premium."
John Vieira (25:01):
And this is super duper, extra premium.
Nick Boban (25:03):
I just wanted to run through these side by side. Real quick.
John Vieira (25:09):
Okay. Yeah. So while you're doing that, just to recap... Number 1 had probably the most unique nose on it. It had the best legs, so probably the highest oil content. And it packed a big sweetness punch to it. Number 2 was kind of the black sheep for all of them. It has probably the hottest nose, in my opinion. It's got... That one was kind of the most, uh, medicinal tasting, I guess, is what you would say. It had kind of a strange flavor to it. I couldn't really put my finger on it. Number 3 to me had a very similar taste profile to number one, but I don't think it was quite as sweet and the nose, uh, in my opinion was not super hot, but Nick said it was very hot. And then conversely, number 4, the nose Nick said was not super hot. I thought it was actually like pretty hot, but it had the big sweet punch that glass number one did. So kind of across the board, nothing is necessarily like, I mean, being as subjective as you can be with it.
Nick Boban (26:37):
Nothing stands out like a hundred percent over the other ones.
John Vieira (26:42):
And I guess that's kind of the point, right? It's like if you were tasting these for quality, I would guess that the lowest quality or the least expensive one, not even knowing what they were would be glass number 2.
Nick Boban (26:56):
I would say... So just in my ranking, I just ran back through all of them real quick, tried to smell them all back to back and taste them all back to back. And so my... I'll wait until John gets done writing down his.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I'm going to, I'm going to do 1...
Nick Boban (27:14):
As the best.
John Vieira (27:18):
As the best. I'm torn between 3 and 4.
Nick Boban (27:21):
As the middle, right?
John Vieira (27:23):
Yeah.
Nick Boban (27:23):
Because 2 we decided to the worst.
John Vieira (27:26):
2 I think is my fourth place, but for...
Nick Boban (27:30):
The 3 and the 4 are negligible.
John Vieira (27:33):
They're very tough.
Nick Boban (27:34):
You wrote down the same thing I just wrote down. So we both ranked these in 1, 4, 3, 2.
John Vieira (27:40):
Oh. Yeah. So my 3 and 4...
Nick Boban (27:43):
But the 3 and 4 are kind of a toss up because they're very similar.
John Vieira (27:48):
The reason why I put 4 slightly above 3...
Nick Boban (27:54):
Because it was a little sweeter and it had a little less of that alcoholic bite.
John Vieira (27:57):
Yeah. It had that really pleasant, even though the nose to me was hotter than 3, It had that really pleasant sweetness, which I will now never discount because I didn't even realize it existed in the flavor. It has that really nice sweetness to it. And to be honest with you, it was almost as smooth as whatever number 3 was. It was very, very much on par with it.
Nick Boban (28:23):
Let's fucking check them out. I want to know this really bad. Okay. So number 2...
John Vieira (28:26):
We have to remove the tape from the bottom. So number 2, our last pick, let's see what it is.
Nick Boban (28:32):
What do you think it was?
John Vieira (28:33):
Well, I kinda... I kind of already guessed. I like Seagram's, but I kind of just assumed it was the cheapest, shittiest one.
Nick Boban (28:40):
The worst one is Absolut, In our ranking.
John Vieira (28:44):
So that is insane to me because with the last time we did this taste test, obviously there SO many factors, I was probably eating like fried pickles and some bullshit.
Nick Boban (28:53):
You've ranked absolut pretty high I thought.
John Vieira (28:56):
I ranked Absolut as, I'm pretty sure, my favorite one.
Nick Boban (28:59):
Oh really?
John Vieira (29:00):
Now granted, it was a slightly different Absolut that we use in our test last time. It was the Elix.
Nick Boban (29:04):
Elix. Yeah. Which was like their premium product.
John Vieira (29:08):
But it's like, it's gotta be very similar, but anyway, that was like my favorite one last time. Okay. Number 3.
Nick Boban (29:17):
Oh wow. This changed from last time. So number 3 was Seagram's.
John Vieira (29:20):
Okay. So that means whatever number 4 is, is VERY on par with Seagram's, which is our budget pick. It's the best bang for your buck that we've found...
Nick Boban (29:34):
Which is Tito's!
John Vieira (29:36):
Which one? Number 4 is Tito's?
Nick Boban (29:38):
Yeah. This was not what I thought it was going to turn out to be looking like. This fucking boggles my brain. No way we picked number, Goose as number 1. Okay. Because the whole time we were talking about this...
John Vieira (29:51):
That makes me hate myself.
Nick Boban (29:52):
I know, me too.
John Vieira (29:53):
Because I've been talking so much shit on Goose for like the last year. Cause last time we did that test, it was not good.
Nick Boban (29:59):
It was the worst one.
John Vieira (30:00):
It was my least favorite one or at least second to last.
Nick Boban (30:03):
We got shitty palate now.
John Vieira (30:07):
Wow. That fucking blows my mind.
Nick Boban (30:10):
Maybe they changed. I don't know.
John Vieira (30:12):
Well, so here's the thing. It shouldn't surprise anyone...
Nick Boban (30:16):
That it rotates all the time.
John Vieira (30:18):
That it rotates, but also like just the things we've eaten today. These things can change, but I just mean goose is a premium spirit from France. What do we know about France? Cognacs one of my absolute favorite spirits. Uh, guess what? Cognac comes from France, a very specific region in France. It makes sense that these guys know what they're doing, but let's think back to the things that we said about number 1. It had the most smooth, pleasant sweetness to it. The most drinkability, just on its own. Least like ethanol, just straight up. And it had the best legs, which was essentially kind of the oil content.
Nick Boban (30:57):
Which is hilarious because I thought that that would have been Tito's.
John Vieira (31:01):
Really? See, I assumed the one with the highest oil content was going to be absolut based on what I experienced in the last, very unofficial taste test. Because to me it had the, it had the most oily, nice texture that I liked. So this is crazy.
Nick Boban (31:18):
Yeah. Well, I do think it's also nice to do a takeaway on this and the takeaway is they're all really similar. Yeah. They were crazy similar. The only noticeably different one was actually Absolut.
John Vieira (31:33):
So we almost... Let's put this in perspective. 3 and 4. So Tito's and Seagram's...
Nick Boban (31:38):
Were almost interchangable. We almost put Seagrams at number 2.
John Vieira (31:41):
Seagram's was almost right behind goose and the price is literally a third. Oh yeah. So like, especially if you're mixing into a cocktail...
Nick Boban (31:52):
What do you need goose for?
John Vieira (31:53):
Don't be so snobby about it. If you're going to drink it on a rock. All right. I understand. Yeah. Brand loyalty, whatever. I'm not judging. You drink how you want to drink. I'm just saying, when you go to a bar and it's full price, there's no happy hour. There's nothing that's going on. You're not getting any sort of discount. And you order every drink that you're drinking with goose and it's like a $1 or $2 upcharge, what are you really doing?
Nick Boban (32:16):
Especially if you're going to put cranberry juice on it.
John Vieira (32:18):
Well, yeah, if you're going to put anything crazy in it, you're literally not going to taste it, but even just like say you're doing like a vodka soda, right. That's just something super popular.
Nick Boban (32:27):
It is pretty plain.
John Vieira (32:28):
I really don't know why people drink that. I would rather have...
Nick Boban (32:30):
Although it does make a little bit more sense now that we have retested this cause sweetness, we don't ever drink this shit on its own. And it does like Grey goose. If I was going to guess, it has added sugar to it.
John Vieira (32:46):
It has to.
Nick Boban (32:47):
It has to for how sweet it is.
John Vieira (32:48):
There's no way it does not. I don't know. Like I feel like I would much prefer to have like a glass of club soda, especially one of those nice Spindrift ones that like has like a hint of flavor and drink that alongside my vodka instead of doing a vodka soda. I also don't drink vodka, really?
Nick Boban (33:09):
This is true.
John Vieira (33:10):
Not saying I'm opposed to it. It's just not...
Nick Boban (33:12):
There's just a lot of other spirits with more flavor.
John Vieira (33:13):
Yeah. There's just not as much. So even the absolute best one, the highest price, one, something like a goose or a Belvedere or whatever these really high priced ones are. They still have much less flavor and enjoyability for me than some other spirits, like cognac. God, I could sit there and make love to cognac in a glass. Like I'm definitely not going to do that with this vodka.
Nick Boban (33:34):
Totally. All right. Well...
John Vieira (33:36):
Well there you have it.
Nick Boban (33:37):
That was a fun episode.
John Vieira (33:38):
So for those of you watching, we'll put them in order here. So number 1 is Grey Goose.
Nick Boban (33:43):
Here. We'll do this. So we've got goose and there's Tito's.
John Vieira (33:48):
Tito's is number 4, right? Glass number 4. Seagram's is glass number 3.
Nick Boban (33:53):
And then absolut.
John Vieira (33:54):
Wow. Absolute really disappointed me on this one. Bummer. It wasn't terrible.
Nick Boban (34:02):
Goose overly surprised me because I remember last time tasting it, it was like overly medicinal.
John Vieira (34:08):
I need to smell this one again. Wow. It's just like, Oh wow. Just to just do a side by side, do those two again.
Nick Boban (34:23):
Sweet, round. Sharp and wow.
John Vieira (34:28):
Like ethanol like straight up. Yeah. Wow. That is insane. I did not expect this to go that way at all.
Nick Boban (34:36):
All right.
John Vieira (34:37):
This is fun. We should do more of these.
Nick Boban (34:38):
Yeah, let's do more. Thanks for watching guys. Uh, check us out next week. We'll figure out something else to talk about.
John Vieira (34:44):
We'll have something good.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Cheers.