Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I'm not a big liqour guy, but Tito's vodka is by far the best and not overly expensive. Distilled by a micro-distillary in Austin, Texas. Who would have thought the best vodka in the world would be made in Texas?
I am a big beer guy. I don't know how people can even stomach Bud, Miller, Coors, etc. Miller is triple hop brewed? My ass.
My beer budget is not ERE compliant, but it is quite worth it. Here are some of my favorites in each category:
Wheat beer: Allagash White - Almost universally acclaimed as the best
Stout: North Coast Brewing Old Rasputin Imperial Stout
IPA: 60 (strong hops), 90 (really strong hops), or 120 (super strong hops) Minute Dogfish Head
Ale: New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale
Specialty beers: Dogfish Head Pangea, Allagash Black
On a side note, Mythbusters had an interesting show where they tested vodka. They had one high end vodka and one bottom of the barrel vodka. They used two people off the show and one professional taster. They then would filter the low end vodka through a Brita filter and do a blind taste test against the high end vodka. Somewhere are 10 filters the non-liquor drinker of the group couldn't tell the difference anymore. At around 15 the liquor drinker from the show couldn't tell the difference, and around 20 the professional couldn't tell the difference anymore. I would assume the cost of the filters and the loss of a certain amount of the alcohol to the filter would make this non-ERE, but it's interesting.

I've been inspired by this thread to give box wine a try. So far the box of "Delicious White" I bought yesterday is too sweet for my taste to put it mildly but I'll suffer through the rest of it. I'll try a different one next time and maybe find one that's better. We spend a decent portion of our grocery budget on wine, so that could be a good place to save for us. DH buys PBR when he wants some beer. Neither of us enjoy liquor that much. Someday I'd like to try keeping bees and home brewing mead, but that's more of a hobby than a cost-saving move I think.

Peroni is my favourite Beer and is usually very reasonably priced in a supermarket, though much less reasonable when drinking out. Tyskie (Polish beer) is another good value, light beer.
For special occasions, a good dry cava (£7 - £8) is a reasonable substitute for real champagne.

From someone who works in the industry : A big thanks for your continued patronage ...keeps the stock up, dividends steady and the overall mood cheery!
My own preference though is towards wine, in fact almost exclusively drink that, even though the company makes some of the world's top rated scotch, single malts, vodka and beer (as an example, I've had a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue with me for the past 6 yrs and it is still half full and almost none of it was consumed by me). Honestly, I prefer a bottle of easy drinking Charles Shaw 2 buck chuck over this.
While sometimes embarrassing to my friends, I think I am fortunate to have cheap tastes!
<As with most food and liquor, I find it is the ambiance and the company that make the experience memorable>
Cheers

Seems that hooch is one of those things that even Master Jacob will splurge on....(one of these days I will splurge on a bottle of Walkers George V).
By the way Jacob....possible to get the Cough Syrup Recipe??? Might be worth catching a cold this year....LOL!
@Arrrgh
Need to try that...now I just need to find a free balloon...
@Mo
Actually have a huge Liquour chain here that in the bars the "shot" was 4/5 of an ounce...at the time booze only came in fifths..no quarts or liters and the owner said if a legal bottle of booze was 4/5 of a quart then a shot was 4/5 of an ounce...thus getting 32 drinks out of a bottle...even had shot glasses custom made for the chain. Billion Dollar privately owned operation run by the grandkids now.

@FrugalZen
They are just handing out free balloons down at Planned Parenthood.
Wait....

@paxprobellum
I thought those were coated with a Yeasticide..
Ooops!

I like the beer from the local concern a lot. From what I seem to recall, wine is taxed the least, liquor the most, and beer is somewhere in between. At least here in the States.

Driven by Alcohol content :
www.ttb.gov/tax_audit/atftaxes.shtml
Also varies by state:
www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/245.html

>a good dry cava (£7 - £8) is a reasonable substitute for real champagne.
You're damn right it is.

I am with the quality over quantity camp. Give me one good whisky over a six pack of beer any night. If you drink in moderation, the price of a few bottles a year barely even dents the budget.
I am really enjoying my bottle of Laphroaig lately. I hear it has medicinal properties...

Just found a great deal on Phillips Peppermint Schnapps two weeks ago. 1.5 liters for 9 cents (plus 50 cents to mail the rebate in)! If you're curious, there is roughly the same amount of alcohol in 1.5 liters of Peppermint Schnapps as there is in a 30 pack of Miller Highlife! Man I love living in Wisconsin.


Edit. I do not find drinking beer in and of its self the goal. Its just a means to an end. Basically, if I am not drinking 15 plus beers, I'm not going to drink. That being said, I don't get hangovers either so there is really no immediate reinforcement to moderation.

CostCo is selling decent beer $16 for 24 pack in my area... I think it's made by Gordon Biersch and is decent.

I heard Gordon Biersch bottles the house brand for Trader Joes as well. I really enjoy the hefeweizen. It tastes like banannas. At around a buck a bottle for craft beer, it's a pretty good price. The also let you buy individual bottles, which makes it much more affordable to try a wide variety of beers.
A night of heavy drinking leaves me feeling like crap for 24-48 hours. I got stuff to do, so I take it easy.
I do think time taken to enjoy a good drink in the company of great people is one of the finer things in life.
Back in my early 20's, I was stuck in the appletini hinterlands. Beer was gross and southern comfort was just burny. I only drank to get trashed, and I didn't enjoy the taste of my alcohol either.
Turns out, cheap lite beer is gross. Crappy liqueurs are nasty. Drinking is an area where paying a little more for quality completely changes the experience.

I am finding that Wild Turkey is comparable or better than Jack Daniels, and costs about $5 less / fifth bottle.

It's not cheap, but I love my Knob Creek 9 year old boubon.
Also, for Jack Daniels fans, give George Dickel a try. It's a little higher quality than Jack and costs less.

If the "most bang" part includes quality and no recovery time (hangovers) i'd go with a decent sake. I can open 3-4 bottles on saturday night with a buddy and wake up sunday morning without ANY hangover and that is something i think is worth paying a premium for.

@vern, 7 years living in Tennessee, I drank a lot of Dickel. The barrel select used to really be something good. It got very hard to get Dickel for a while-- some sort of business problem shut things down for a while? so I switched to JD, and never went back. I don't prefer the standard Dickel these days, when I try it again.

Boxed wine, cheap and (semi) tasty!

Our Sam's Club sells Sam Adams by the case for ~$1 per bottle. Their Octoberfest is in season, which is one of my favorites.