On 2010-06-25, Doug Freyburger > wrote:

> don't know if that means I don't appreciate good wines or not.

I think it means you can't really afford them!

> For beers I'm happy to pay the much higher price for the very best, but
> it's rare to find a bottle of beer/ale for over $20. Drinking only one
> every week or so that sort of price on a beer doesn't bother me.

They are out there. Samuel Adams $100 btl Utopia's. DogFishHead $12
for 12 oz IPA 120. I once had a privately brewed barley wine that was
$150 for a champagne sized bottle. Worth every cent. $10-20 for
large btl is average price for Belgian beers. I pay $6 for the
occassional 8 oz btl of Duchess De Bourgogne (there's one to try!).

> Drinking only a bottle of wine or two a year the $300 price range is
> extreme enough for me tha tit has been a few decades since I've sprung
> for the best.

I've not gone down that $100+ bottle of wine, yet, but I will gladly
pay $20-30 for a btl of French Champagne rather than suffer "sparkling
wine", no matter how trendy or who makes it. I don't know if wine
really does get that much better over $300.

> Next up - Extremely good cognac. But for about 25 years I've been
> saying a $200 bottle of cognac is next in line and it still hasn't
> happened again. Must be too low on my priorities to happen any time
> soon. Yet next month I'm likely to buy another $20 bottle of fine ale.

Not so sure about spirits, too. I've tasted $350 tequila and it
wasn't that much better than $60-80 tequila. Certainly not $270
better. I'm not a Scotch drinker. I know I like $80 Bourbon better
than $20 Bourbon. Vodka cracks me up! The more you spend, the less
flavor. That seems pretty dumb.

nb