In today’s brand new episode of ‘Price Points’, we challenged liquor expert Lynnette Marrero to a blind test–from texture to taste, could she guess which spirit is cheaper and which is a premium product?
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00:00 I'm Lynette Marrero and I am a liquor expert.
00:02 [upbeat music]
00:05 I was fooled.
00:07 [bell dings]
00:12 Vodka is a category of spirit that is by definition
00:16 meant to be odorless, tasteless,
00:18 but we both know that's not right.
00:20 So with vodka, you can actually make it
00:22 from several different kinds of materials.
00:24 You can actually make it from things like grains,
00:26 so rye, wheat, things like corn, potatoes.
00:30 You can use actually even sugar cane and things like fruit.
00:34 But then through distillation,
00:35 we remove all those flavors and aromas
00:37 and work on something that's nice, clean, and neutral.
00:40 So let's go ahead, pick this up, take a look.
00:44 So the first thing I'm gonna do is
00:46 I'm not gonna swirl and swish this
00:48 like I would a glass of wine to release aromas
00:50 because this is higher proof.
00:51 I do not want all those alcohol molecules to burn my nose.
00:55 Just have a gentle swirl, release some of the aromas.
00:57 Not a lot of legs.
00:59 Legs would be, you know, when you're having a glass of wine,
01:01 you see kind of streams running down,
01:03 that's called the legs.
01:04 Those can indicate things like proof.
01:06 So if it has more alcohol,
01:08 that'll cling to the glass a little more.
01:09 If it is lower proof, that can mean
01:11 that they can charge less for it
01:13 because you have more water.
01:14 Okay, oh wow, so there's a little floral note
01:17 on the nose here.
01:19 Obvious thing you're gonna say is you get alcohol
01:21 because it's vodka, but it's not in a way
01:23 that's so overwhelming like a rubbing alcohol.
01:25 So this is actually very nice.
01:27 You get nuanced.
01:28 B is also pretty clear, pretty classic, standard.
01:32 I'm gonna give that a little swirl.
01:33 Okay, now this has a little more viscosity.
01:36 So viscosity is thickness, right?
01:38 So think about olive oil versus maple syrup.
01:41 Olive oil might have some, you know,
01:43 it has viscosity and it'll drip down,
01:46 but it's not like taking as long
01:48 as like a maple syrup to pour.
01:50 For the proof that I'm guessing this could be,
01:52 it's very balanced.
01:54 What that means is I'm not getting sharp alcohol.
01:56 You know, it took me a little longer
01:58 to kind of really get into this one.
02:00 You know, A, I got more alcohol.
02:01 It felt a little more disjointed.
02:03 And B, I'm kinda getting it all together,
02:05 which I think is exactly the point
02:07 of having something that's neutral and balanced.
02:09 I'm not supposed to detect way too much,
02:11 but I think this is all coming together cohesively.
02:14 So when I'm tasting, I'm going to always grab a glass,
02:17 put it in my mouth, hold it for a second,
02:19 and then I'm actually going to discard it
02:21 in my little handy tasting spittoon.
02:23 This is because I do not want to burn out my palate.
02:25 This is just a way of keeping your palate nice and fresh
02:28 for the full tasting.
02:30 All right, so I'm gonna start back with A over here.
02:33 Okay, so let's see if what I was smelling
02:35 on the aromas comes into the palate.
02:37 First, that citrusy note that I was mentioning
02:42 definitely comes into my palate.
02:44 I'm getting a little more spice.
02:46 I'm getting things like black pepper
02:48 from noticing from the legs.
02:49 There's something a little bit more unctuous about it.
02:51 Unctuous meaning having a little thickness to it.
02:54 Okay, so now I'm gonna get into glass B.
02:57 All right, B is black peppercorn
03:03 coming all the way through my palate,
03:04 and I'm starting to salivate a little bit.
03:06 So with good, well-made spirits,
03:08 you kind of want that salivating moment.
03:11 You want your palate to perk up, right?
03:14 It's all about intrigue.
03:15 So that tends to be a marker of something
03:17 that has a lot of substance.
03:20 Okay, so I'm really deliberating here between these two.
03:24 Really, I'm gonna go strongly with the nose and the aroma.
03:27 I believe that B was super balanced
03:30 and that I think it's slightly higher in proof,
03:33 so I think we're gonna get a little bit
03:34 of a higher price point here.
03:36 $18 a bottle for A, and yozo, $150 for B.
03:43 Well, I can taste quality.
03:47 (laughs)
03:48 Or price.
03:49 This is tequila, but this is reposado tequila.
03:53 So what we're gonna see here, obviously, this is color.
03:56 This brings in some of those influences
03:58 that you're gonna get when you age.
04:00 They usually can be aged in steel or oak.
04:03 So I'm gonna go ahead and taste in this glass.
04:05 It has a little bit of a bevel to it.
04:06 I wanna concentrate those aromas.
04:08 So when I'm smelling, especially I like this
04:10 for things that have some age on it,
04:12 I just really wanna kind of get to the heart
04:14 of what's happening.
04:15 All right, so we are going to try a reposado tequila.
04:18 Reposado means rested, so we are rested in those barrels
04:21 from that two months up to that year.
04:23 For me, this category is gonna be very important
04:26 is to maintaining the flavor of the agave, right?
04:30 So we're gonna see how that comes out
04:31 with what kind of oak they're using
04:33 or if they're using steel or just kind of
04:36 the length of time.
04:37 So I'm gonna go ahead and dig it into A.
04:40 I'm definitely getting the roasted agave,
04:42 and I know that's a strange note,
04:44 but that is really important.
04:45 When you cook the agaves,
04:46 there is a tanginess that comes through,
04:48 and so you want that aroma.
04:50 You wanna smell the agave here.
04:52 Interesting, so the proof here,
04:54 you know, I'm looking at the legs.
04:55 Yeah, I'm gonna guess that this has not been aged
04:57 on the longest side, right?
04:59 It's not really pushing that one year just pre-agnejo.
05:03 I'm gonna guess this is kind of a mid-range,
05:05 like I think maybe four or five months.
05:07 Over 80 proof, certainly not up into 90s or anything like that
05:11 because it's a really very mellow, nice aroma.
05:14 I'm heading over here to B.
05:16 The color is slightly darker than A,
05:18 so usually the color in, you know,
05:21 a spirit that's aged in wood,
05:22 it tells you how long it's been in wood.
05:24 You're allowed to add different things
05:26 once they come out of barrels,
05:27 small amounts of additives to correct color.
05:29 I don't know if that's being done here.
05:31 You know, I think with this color,
05:32 because the amount of aroma I'm getting,
05:35 I'm thinking this has just been aged
05:36 a decent amount of time, maybe six to eight months-ish.
05:39 I wouldn't say aging longer means better quality.
05:43 Sometimes when they age it longer, they do charge more.
05:46 The more time it's left in a barrel,
05:47 it's not being sold, so it's time away from being on sale.
05:50 So we will see when we get to taste.
05:53 Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and start over here on A.
05:57 So, the first taste, I'm still getting some agave.
06:02 There is a little savoriness to it,
06:04 so like a little salinity,
06:05 but overall pretty nice and balanced.
06:08 Okay, so over here,
06:09 that's a lot of wood for me.
06:13 Wood, wood, wood.
06:14 The agave for me is overtaken
06:19 by some of the wood notes here.
06:20 It's not super sweet, nothing being added
06:22 or very little being added to kind of correct the sweetness.
06:25 So I think B is more expensive.
06:27 I think it's spent more time in the barrel.
06:29 For me, it's a little too much oak on it
06:31 or a little too much wood notes are coming through.
06:33 I believe B is more expensive.
06:37 All right, here we go.
06:39 Okay, so that is a dramatic difference.
06:42 We are not talking about little subtle differences.
06:45 Wow, so really I'm wondering if this is
06:48 a much more small batch, a smaller distillery.
06:52 Maybe it's where they're sourcing their agaves.
06:54 $26, you know, they're being more economical,
06:58 they might have bigger resources.
07:00 This is a fascinating differential.
07:05 So this is gin, more specifically London Dry Gin.
07:09 So London Dry Gin starts in the UK,
07:11 starts in London, clearly.
07:13 It's now a style that people are quite familiar with.
07:16 Some categories of gin, you could add maybe some sugar to it,
07:19 add color to them if you wanna make them vibrantly purple.
07:22 Some of them, they may wanna add flavors after distillation.
07:25 Cannot do that with London Dry,
07:27 so we're gonna go for this very clean, crisp style.
07:29 We're gonna really be tasting
07:31 what people really expect from gin.
07:33 Things like juniper and coriander,
07:35 orris root and some of those botanicals.
07:37 All of those different botanicals lead up to what gin is.
07:40 Otherwise, without all those botanicals,
07:42 gin is just a vodka.
07:43 So A, it's pretty nice and clear, pretty clean,
07:48 got a pretty neutral color.
07:50 Looking at the glass here a little bit,
07:52 most gins would be over 80 proof.
07:55 That's kind of an industry standard,
07:57 you kinda see things hanging around around 86.
07:59 So I'm not surprised to see some nice legs going on here
08:03 to indicate proof.
08:04 You know, it hangs out in little droplets at the top,
08:06 and then the legs are just kinda nice and thin,
08:08 taking their time to come down.
08:10 And we're gonna try on the nose,
08:11 'cause this is where I'm really gonna know, right?
08:13 Wow, so first thing that hits me is a nice lemon.
08:18 That juniper, that classic pine.
08:21 I'm not getting a huge, hefty wave of alcohol.
08:24 So I'm gonna say this is good quality.
08:27 Gin, it's kind of funny, I think with the market,
08:29 we're gonna have an interesting thing
08:30 when we look about price point.
08:31 Most because I think they're actually much closer
08:34 in general, especially in the London Dry category.
08:36 We're gonna see, where are those differentials?
08:38 Are they really coming from?
08:39 You know, the rarity of some of the ingredients.
08:41 But again, London Dry sticks the very classic combination
08:44 of the botanicals, because you really wanna make sure
08:46 that juniper's coming up, that horse root, angelica,
08:48 and those botanicals are coming through.
08:50 So let's go ahead and head over to B.
08:53 I mean, I'm getting a nice, nice long legs here.
08:56 It's a little viscosity too.
08:58 It's thicker.
09:00 Oh wow.
09:00 Like, definitely super herbaceous.
09:03 Definitely that juniper is hanging out
09:05 in the lower half of this glass in a different way.
09:07 It's that aroma you kinda get from, you know,
09:09 I don't wanna go say too much like pine trees or Christmas,
09:11 but it sort of is that aroma.
09:12 And I guess this one might be slightly higher proof,
09:15 carrying all of that flavor.
09:16 So less water, it's gonna deliver lots of flavor
09:20 to the nose.
09:21 We'll see what happens on the palate.
09:23 So I'm gonna start here with A.
09:27 Wow, I'm getting lemon, lemon, lemon.
09:30 Lemon's coming right through.
09:31 Some of the juniper notes kinda disappear.
09:33 Little less coming out there.
09:35 Maybe there's a little bit of hint of like white pepper
09:37 and things like that, but dissipated very quickly.
09:40 I'm gonna dig into B,
09:41 'cause I feel like I need a longer journey here.
09:44 Wow.
09:47 Juniper, pepper, citrus, it is all coming through.
09:52 That juniper has a really nice length of finish, depth.
09:56 I'm getting lots of just vibrant flavors and aromas.
10:00 Some people equate maybe a longer finish
10:02 with a premium spirit.
10:03 I do think sometimes a long finish can be a bad long finish.
10:06 This is a great long finish.
10:08 I think this one just paints so quickly an A,
10:10 but this long finish, you know,
10:12 I'm guessing it adds to the value and quality of B.
10:14 I don't like to equate flavors, aroma, length of flavor,
10:18 but I just think this is,
10:19 had a lot more care and thought into making it.
10:22 I'm gonna go with, I think B is more expensive.
10:26 (dramatic music)
10:28 Okay, well, I guess all those different investigative clues
10:31 led me to the right decision.
10:33 I think my biggest clues were that beautiful finish,
10:35 the nose delivered on the palate.
10:37 When those two things connect, you're like,
10:38 okay, that is a quality distillate.
10:40 There you go, B.
10:41 Congrats.
10:42 Bourbon.
10:45 A bourbon is a whiskey,
10:47 and it's made from 51% corn in the mash.
10:52 So the mash bill is all the different grains
10:54 that come together, ferment into a beer,
10:57 which you distill it into then your white dog whiskey,
10:59 and then you age it to become bourbon.
11:01 In a bourbon, you have to age it
11:03 in new American oak barrels,
11:05 and that usually goes into a charred barrel.
11:08 That toasting prepares the barrel to receive the whiskey.
11:12 It's gonna release all these different chemical compounds
11:14 that give you the flavors and aromas
11:15 of vanilla, cocoa, caramel.
11:18 All right, so I'm gonna go ahead
11:19 and take a look at A here.
11:21 Going back to those toasting barrels,
11:23 you can have light toast, you can have a heavy toast.
11:27 Color is also something that comes
11:28 from charring barrels, right?
11:30 So you get that nice starkness.
11:32 The liquid that goes in is usually
11:33 at a pretty high percentage,
11:35 but it's gonna start taking some of that.
11:37 It's this conversation between the wood.
11:38 I'm taking a look at this glass here,
11:41 which is our very traditional whiskey-tasting glass.
11:44 I'm gonna take a look at the viscosity here.
11:47 Got a nice little fin, little legs
11:48 kind of starting to form here.
11:50 The color here is a nice amber.
11:52 You know, this might have spent more time in barrel.
11:54 Somewhere I'm thinking there might be some extra aging,
11:57 which might lean into the price point.
12:00 We're gonna go over here to B.
12:02 The color on this is, it seems a little bit less reddish,
12:05 so a little more gold in color,
12:08 but definitely kind of get that nice hue.
12:10 Kind of down here, I'm getting a little bit
12:12 of a nice graininess, like a cereal note.
12:15 And I'm guessing this one's a little younger.
12:16 It's showing me some of the younger characteristics.
12:18 The cereal, the grains maybe quite haven't been
12:21 overshadowed yet by the aging in the wood.
12:24 Okay.
12:25 So, I'm gonna start with A here.
12:29 Wow, okay.
12:32 I think this is some good percent ABV on it.
12:35 There's a little cocoa note that comes in.
12:37 It's quite dry.
12:39 That to me maybe is telling me
12:40 that there's a little more tannin.
12:41 So tannins are, it's kind of like what you have in wine.
12:44 There are particles that come out from wood aging
12:47 that can be very dry.
12:49 I'm kind of leaning into this has spent more time in wood.
12:52 It has maybe picked up some of those tannins
12:54 and it's giving me that nice dryness to it,
12:57 but not overly sweet.
12:58 So really nice balance.
12:59 It feels like it's been mellowed out through the wood.
13:02 All right, so now I'm gonna get ready for B here.
13:05 Okay, some of those cereal notes are really coming out.
13:09 It's a little bit sweeter than it was on the nose.
13:12 Less of that tannin.
13:13 Actually, my palate's quite juicy.
13:15 I feel like there's a big age difference,
13:17 but I feel like this is much younger than this.
13:20 Some of those sweeter notes,
13:21 it hasn't had time to pull more extraction from the barrel
13:25 to kind of dry it out and give me those tannins.
13:27 Whereas before on A,
13:29 I was definitely getting a nice drying feeling.
13:31 So I wasn't kind of getting that same coating.
13:33 I believe that A is our more expensive bourbon.
13:38 Oh!
13:41 All right, so we have A here.
13:46 It's about $100.
13:47 Nice, you're getting that age, time, and wisdom.
13:51 And you know, not bad, 23 bucks over here.
13:55 I'm not gonna say that this whiskey
13:57 isn't gonna be just hanging out with you
13:59 for some shaking cocktails.
14:01 However, I would not be taking A
14:03 and mixing it quite in that same way.
14:05 It's a sipper.
14:06 Rum.
14:10 Jamaican rum has a few things that make it quite different.
14:14 Jamaican rums are made in copper pot stills.
14:17 You have age coming on here.
14:19 So we're gonna try ones that have had
14:20 some of the wood influence
14:21 as opposed to maybe one of the Jamaican rums
14:24 that would not be having much aging.
14:25 The ones that are unaged tend to be pretty high proof.
14:28 There is a certain terroir and an aroma
14:31 that ends up in Jamaican rum.
14:33 So they call this the Jamaican funk.
14:35 The Jamaican funk brings out notes of like
14:36 mango, banana, pineapple,
14:38 and it can be affected by the natural yeast
14:41 that's happening around and the bacteria.
14:42 So that's all part of the good stuff.
14:44 So we are gonna be tasting in these rum tasting glasses,
14:47 which are very similar to a whiskey glass.
14:49 They do have a stem.
14:50 I can actually smell from a further distance,
14:52 bring it closer, not to the nose.
14:54 But again, they have that somewhat straighter side,
14:57 not the belt, 'cause I wanna focus those aromas
15:00 so I can really dial in and see what's going on.
15:03 Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and take A here.
15:06 You know, it's got a nice dark amber color
15:08 that could give me an indication
15:10 that there might be some color correcting.
15:12 Sometimes color being added is you wanna have
15:15 a richer color that's a way to kind of perceive older age.
15:20 I'm getting a lot of acetone being like
15:22 when you open nail polish.
15:24 So a little bit of that aroma coming through,
15:27 so I'm like, ooh, maybe this one might have
15:29 a little bit of color correction,
15:31 maybe not aged quite as long.
15:33 Okay, so we are now here in our B.
15:37 So the color here is a really nice, pretty,
15:40 kind of golden amber hue.
15:41 Not quite as dark as A.
15:43 The other one went more reddish,
15:45 which leads me to think there's probably
15:47 some caramel coloring in there.
15:48 So we're gonna give that a little swirl.
15:50 Okay, I got some nice legs here.
15:52 I'm thinking this got a little more proof.
15:54 Oh yeah, those are long.
15:56 Might be slightly above 80.
15:58 Getting a lot of grassiness on a tanginess
16:02 that reminds you of the sugar cane.
16:04 It's quite elegant.
16:05 There's a subtlety to the aromas here.
16:08 Let's go ahead and give A a try.
16:11 (upbeat music)
16:12 Interesting, I'm getting a lot of dryness, right?
16:16 That acetone aroma that was on the front,
16:18 which made me feel like maybe there was
16:20 a little bit of a lesser quality.
16:23 It's not delivering on my palate.
16:25 Let's go ahead and get into B here.
16:27 My palate, I'm getting a lot of,
16:32 there's a hint of an elegant sweetness.
16:35 A has darker color, so might make me think
16:38 that there was longer aging, et cetera,
16:41 but I felt like it was a little less nuanced.
16:44 I felt like B was delivering some of the similar tones,
16:48 but in a more slower release.
16:51 I definitely think there's a more elegant nose on B.
16:55 Color here, I think, might be the thing
16:58 that's trying to trick me.
16:59 I think B is the one that probably is longer aged.
17:03 Maybe it has an older blend in it.
17:05 But I think this B is the one that is more expensive.
17:09 Okay, oh, well, this one fooled me.
17:16 Wow, I was, I mean, I guess this must have some higher proof.
17:21 This is $200 and B is $24.
17:25 I mean, I'm missing that acetone that I was getting on here
17:28 that I'm maybe sensitive to.
17:30 Might mean that there's a big difference in proof here.
17:32 So if I was getting those alcohol esters,
17:35 on the nose, but I really did get a decent amount of that,
17:37 I, wow, I really thought that was maybe additives.
17:40 For my $24 here, I thought this was really the one.
17:43 I was like, great, this one's giving me some nice
17:46 fruit aromas, had a nice elegance.
17:48 So, all right, this is where, for me,
17:51 I'm gonna save myself about $150,
17:53 or $35 when I'm enjoying my Jamaican rum.
17:57 So there we go.
17:58 [laughs]
18:00 So when tasting liquor or spirits,
18:01 I think what's really important to note
18:03 is that there's a bunch of different factors
18:05 that are gonna go into cost and price point.
18:07 So be confident, be comfortable, know what you like,
18:10 and go into that direction, and enjoy your spirits,
18:13 and you can be the critic next time.
18:15 (upbeat music)