Nicest and worst alcohol

Fraggr said:
TOTALLY off topic... if they're not stored properly, can they start to turn vinegar-y?
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If you open them they start to ferment more and turn acidic (irrc) like vinegar.

KaHn
 
KaHn said:
If you open them they start to ferment more and turn acidic (irrc) like vinegar.

KaHn
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Ah, that's probably it then. It's really horrible stuff when it goes like that.
 
dangerousmouse said:
1985 petrus 10,008.50 GBP

and not so old either.
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According to Forbes the worlds most expensive wine is a lot more and a lot older then that.

World's Most Expensive Wines
Nick Passmore

When an enterprising young man named James Christie opened his sales rooms in London in December 1766, his first auction consisted of the estate of a "deceased nobleman" containing "a large Quantity of Madeira and high Flavour'd Claret." The records don't relate how much these delightfully described "high Flavour'd clarets" fetched but as the whole sale realized a grand total £175, it is a sure bet that if Christie had known that two hundred years later, in 1985, his now famous auction house would sell one bottle of wine for £105,000, or $160,000, he might have held back a bottle or two to enrich his future heirs.

This bottle was a Bordeaux, a 1787 Chateau Lafite, and, according to The Guinness Book of World Records, 18 years later it still is the world's most expensive bottle of wine. Its great age alone would have ensured a good price but what gave it its special cachet, especially to American collectors, and ensured the record price tag were the initials Th.J. etched in the glass.

The bottle had belonged to Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and one of the most revered of its founding fathers. A philosopher, scientist and statesmen, the aristocratic Jefferson was also an avid oenophile. When he was ambassador to France he spent much of his time visiting the vineyards of Bordeaux and Burgundy, buying wine for his own collection and on behalf of his friends back home. He is also associated with two other bottles of very pricy wine, a 1775 Sherry ($43,500) and the most expensive white wine ever sold, a 1787 Chateau d'Yquem ($56,588).

Of course none of these wines are actually drinkable now; it is unusual for even the best Bordeaux to last more than 50 years, and 200 years is beyond any wine's limit. The allure of these high-priced bottles of vinegar, and other wines of its ilk, is purely in the joy of collecting, not consuming. The 1787 Lafite was explicitly bought as a piece of Jefferson memorabilia, not as a bottle of wine, and it now resides in the Forbes Collection in New York. These wines are rather like old stamps, something to be collected, horded but never used, and they command such high prices not because of their utility but because of their scarcity and consequent appeal to collectors.

Compiling a list of the World's Most Expensive Bottles of Wine is not as simple as it might first appear. How do you compare the price paid for a double magnum--that's four bottles--to a single bottle? Do you rate them on the same scale or do you divide the price of the big bottle by four in order to determine its per-single bottle price?

So, rather than compiling a league table we determined 11 separate categories, then sought out the most expensive bottle in each category, and a pretty interesting search it turned out to be. One of the first things you'll notice is that all the wines on the list were sold at auction, because, except in rare occasions, the seller knows that the publicity surrounding a special bottle, and the heated atmosphere of competitive bidding, often results in even higher prices.

The world's most expensive bottle of wine that could actually be drunk today is also the most expensive wine ever sold in America, a Montrachet 1978 from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti that was hammered down at Sotheby's (nyse: BID - news - people ) in New York in 2001. The lot of seven bottles fetched $167,500, or $23,929 per bottle. This is an extraordinary price for a white wine, even in the rarified world of wine collecting. What happened was that two avid collectors were bidding against each other and got carried away, each refusing to yield as the price rose through the stratosphere.

Michael Broadbent, the former head of Christie's wine department, relates a similar story concerning the sale of the Jefferson Lafite. As the bidding approached £100,000 for this unique bottle, he changed bid steps, that is the amount the bids increased by. One of the two remaining bidders was Marvin Shanken, publisher of the Wine Spectator, and according to Broadbent, he didn't notice the change until, to his very obvious horror, he realized that he had just offered to pay £100,000 for one bottle of wine. As he sat there ashen faced a great hush fell over the packed auction room as everyone waited to see if the other bidder, Christopher Forbes, would come back in. He eventually did, at £105,000, much to Shanken's very palpable relief.

Then there is the strange case of the most expensive bottle of wine never sold. In 1989 William Sokolin, a New York wine merchant, had a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1787, also with Jefferson's initials, on consignment from its English owner. He was asking $500,000 for it but had had no cash offers when he took it along to a Chateau Margaux dinner at the Four Seasons restaurant. (Why would it cost so much more than the 1787 Lafite? It didn't cost more than the Lafite, just that Sokolin was asking $500,000. I don't think he expected to get this much and had had no offers by the time of the accident. However, just by asking such a huge sum he generated a lot of publicity, which some people speculate was the whole point of the exercise. He did however get $225,000 from the insurance company which he claims, with some justification, makes it the world's most expensive bottle, even if it was never sold. Besides everything else it's a fun story about a very expensive bottle however you rate it.)

At the end of the evening he was getting ready to leave when a waiter carrying a coffee tray bumped the bottle, breaking it. Luckily, Sokolin had the foresight to insure his valuable vin, and shared the $225,000 payout with the owner, which makes this the world's most expensive broken bottle of wine. History does not tell us what happened to the unfortunate waiter.

What all these wines have in common, whether it's the undrinkable 1787 Lafite or the eminently drinkable 1945 Mouton, and what makes them command such astronomic prices, is their scarcity value.

The world seems to have an ever-increasing appetite for collecting unusual old things, be they baseball cards, 1950s Formica furniture or steam train memorabilia, and it's only natural that rare wines are subject to this same collecting mania.

Now, with more and more people discovering the pleasures of drinking wine, especially the newly rich of China and East Asia, the prices of all fine wines will continue to rise and it will only be a matter of time before Mr. Jefferson's bottle, and several others on our list, see their formally eye-popping prices surpassed as ever richer and ever more determined collectors compete for that one, must-have bottle of wine.
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http://www.forbes.com/2003/11/19/cx_np_1119feat.html
 
Fraggr said:
TOTALLY off topic... if they're not stored properly, can they start to turn vinegar-y?
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generally speaking, yes.

if you are going to get a decent wine it will most likely have a cork made of cork (rather than the newer plastic/rubber/screw cap). if you store this for a period of time in an upright position the cork will dry out. this can lead to a very small amount of shrinkage in the cork and allow air movement into the bottle.

if you do store it upright, but not for too long (about 8 months) the cork should still be ok, but the small amoung of air in the top of the botle will oxidise with the wine (only at the very top though). so when you open the bottle you will get a sulphery whiff, and the first bit of wine poured wont taste the best. its best to just discard this first bit of wine and enjoy the rest of the bottle.

EDIT: and as kahn said if the botle has been opened it really should be drunk within the next 2 days (unless you have a vac u vin, or other similar vacuum tool) in which case, you will prolong the life of the wine, lasting upto 7 days.
 
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Fraggr said:
TOTALLY off topic... if they're not stored properly, can they start to turn vinegar-y?
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Wines have to be laid flat if they're to be stored for any significant length of time, which can be as little as days depending on various factors. Standing them up will at some point lead to a chemical process which fouls the wine. I can't remember the full name of the process, but I'm sure it begins oxy-. In the trade, a ruined bottle is referred to as a corked bottle.
 
The worst alcohol I've ever had was brandy after absynth. Couldn't taste it at all. Chugged quite a lot of it too. Cue brown sick.
 
Best: Couldn't decide. Lagers my fav is Coors, for spirits ill drink vodka all night long but i've never had any fancy stuff smirnoff does me :p . Dont mind a bit of jack of jim bean now and again. On alcopop terms ill chug anything, gotta love apple sours as a super quick way (although slightly expensive) way of getting smashed.

Worst: Sambucca/eizo(oozo however you spell it)/prno. Basically anything anacede(sp?) flavoured makes me upchuck sharpish after some fellow delightfully filled up my remaining lager with it and i chugged away. The smell of it will turn my stomach.
 
KaHn said:
How can you say apple sourz is expensive? Its about a quid a shot round here.

KaHn

http://www.thedrinkshop.com/products/nlpdetail.php?prodid=594
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I drink that by the bottle. :o

One bottle of that,two of magners + 6aftershocks in one glass = near death :D


Nicest drink for me would be cointreau and lime,easy to drink and can enjoy the taste but gets you hammered. Worst for me is aftershock,i like it but ive had too many bad experiences involving half a bottle of it so i stay clear or stick to one shot per night or something daft like that.
 
I can drink baileys and vodka like water, it hits me like a cannon ball to the face tho.

KaHn
 
This has just become a willy waving competition.


I can drink water like water i can :)



edit: Takes note of the year the willy wavers were born in
 
Zip said:
This has just become a willy waving competition
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No it hasnt, I have never stated how much drink I can handle, as vodka + baileys makes me wasted, I was just saying it was a nice combination as a mixer.

please if your just going to post random crap in a thread then stay out in future?

KaHn
 
KaHn said:
No it hasnt, I have never stated how much drink I can handle, as vodka + baileys makes me wasted, I was just saying it was a nice combination as a mixer.

please if your just going to post random crap in a thread then stay out in future?

KaHn
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To show you where the willys wave


Jonny ///M said:
I drink that by the bottle.

One bottle of that,two of magners + 6aftershocks in one glass = near death
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KaHn said:
I can drink baileys and vodka like water, it hits me like a cannon ball to the face tho.
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Neon said:
i can drink baileys like water.
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It just reminds me of when i was back in primary school when little kids are like "I can do this" "well i can do this" Well i can do this but i can do it better" :p
 
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Zip said:
To show you were the willys wave











It just reminds me of when i was back in primary school when little kids are like "I can do this" "well i can do this" Well i can do this but i can do it better" :p
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we were just merely stating what alchohol we can drink and how easily. im not shouting i can drink more than you. or anybody else.
 
Neon said:
we were just merely stating what alchohol we can drink and how easily. im not shouting i can drink more than you. or anybody else.
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Hell I even stated it kicks me in the ass, but nevermind eh?

KaHn
 
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