luxury used to mean something. it was based on taste and some tangible quality. now unfortunately luxury has come to evolve solely around price for many. think about it, before there was kettle one, belvedere, cirac, even absolute the real 007 drank good old smirnoff vodka by choice. hell, it was russian for one! and two it was vodka. you simply can’t do too much to vodka. bonds taste/aura revolved around how he drank it. but now its amazing how they can sell the same tasteless clear liquid for quadruple the price with no added benefit…

i would say that belvedere deserves a few dollars more just for its lovely bottle, but cirac for example should be half the price of smirnoff just for us putting up with its horrendous bottle design and bad adverts. I recall as a child, my father having smirnoff and johnny walker “red” in his bar as an everyday stock, and my father, mind you, could have had anything. here I am drinking kettle one and “black” label as my bottom of the pile and my assets are 1/10,000 of his. now of course scotch is not vodka and there is a difference. but it just goes to show how our generation simply lives way beyond its means and how marketing has effected us all… even me the undisputed master debunk-er of marketing. by dd