Blind taste and rank 10 vodkas- PUNISHMENT | How to Drink

Ray! Come on down! You're the next contestant on The Vodka Game! Today on How to Drink, I play The Vodka Game. Why? And so the premise of the game is that the lovely people who helped me make this show went out and picked up 10 bottles of vodka, well 9 bottles of vodka, we'll get to number 10 in a second, and have arranged them in a row from A to J, and I have to organize them from cheap to expensive. So, alright, so this is cheap, and that's expensive, and I have to get 80 points. Each correctly placed vodka is worth 10 points, and it is worth 1 point less for each position away from its intended position it is. That's very complicated verbally, but we're going to do some special graphics to make it very simple. And there's some lovely people who are keeping track of the math back there. This glass of pulpy looking nightmare fuel is the punishment drink, which I must drink if I fail to acquire 80 points, and I don't know what's in it. Each member of the crew is permitted to add one ounce of anything to it. Anything edible, there's no bleach, right? I don't think there's any bleach, so hopefully it won't actually kill me. And so that is, uh, I really want to score 80 points because it's rough smelling and pulpy. I really can't even begin to imagine what that is in there. Better not be cat food. A little bit different than the normal stuff we do on the show, but you know what was fun is that recently I got to be a guest judge on a show called Proof. That was fun, that was a lot of fun. It's kind of a cocktail competition, really cool stuff. I hope you check it out. And so based on that, I thought, why don't we do more game stuff here on how to drink? So today, a vodka game. The vodkas that we have are Vodka 16 100, Wheatly Vodka, Tito's Handmade Vodka, Kettle One Vodka, Absolute Vodka, Gary's Good Vodka, 100, Gary's Good Vodka. All right. I like it. I like the branding. That's great. Gary's Good Vodka. Stoli 100 Proof, which I think all of these are going to be 80, so that one might stand out. We'll find out. Grey Goose, Laird's Charcoal Filtered Vodka, which is a local favorite. Love the Lairds around here. Also, just got to point out, this one's the one in the plastic. That's how you know it's the good one. And Everclear. Now the Everclear, if I'm not mistaken, has been cut 50% water, so it should just be ethanol and local tap water. Down to about 80 proof, so it should be pretty indistinguishable from vodka, if I am correct. Okay, so I'm going to move this off frame. Here comes one of the murderous bastards who mixed it now. He'll bring that back later. They are also telling me that if I win, they're all going to drink it. We'll see what happens when I win and if they want to follow through on that. I don't know that we've had a unanimous vote on that, so it'll be the tyranny of the majority. All right, we'll just start with A. That is pure acetone. That just smells like a doctor's office right away. It's malty. Very malty. Maltiness that gives away to a bit of that acetone nail polish remover thing. Oh man, that is terrible. Oh, there is differences in these. That's amazing. I mean, and also even for clarity, that one's kind of cloudy. Are we sure these glasses were clean? Because there's a completely different, like this one has a blue hue to it. I don't know if that's coming through on camera or not, but I mean it looks almost like it's got quinine in it. That's got to be cheap. I feel like this is not, I feel like there's got to be methylated alcohols in here. That must be what that bluish hue is. That tastes like a wet fart. All right, we're going to put this one over here. We're going to put that one in the cheapest spot for the moment. A moves up above B. Oh boy, that's some, I mean just by the, I mean the fact it's not clear is pretty wild. I've never seen a vodka that's less than clear and that one is less than clear. I'm tempted of course to now compare it to all these things behind me, but I'm not going to do that. I guess I could identify it that way. That one visually is not the same as the rest. Oh, maybe that's the Everclear, I wonder. Because maybe it's a suspension that's happening from the water being added to it. Okay, that's similar to the other one. Less malty and I feel like, I got a feeling that the malty one is some kind of crafty stuff. I have a feeling from a marketing standpoint that's being referred to as being a plus, right? Like that it's made from whiskier-ish grains. It's a little less neutral. This one is much more neutral. Has a lot of acetone in it still though, so I'm going to bump the A up above the C and the C remains above the B. All right, here we go. That's really sweet. They added sugar to that to cover the acetone that comes in later. A moves up, D moves down. I should say too, as much as I like A, I'm predicting that A is an expensive, more expensive vodka. That's what I'm predicting. I don't know which one I like so much. I think that actually C might have been my favorite. Either I've shot out my mouth or not. I mean, that tastes like nothing. Absolutely pure neutral, so it's possible that that's a very expensive vodka. Putting that above A. Hey, you know what I just realized? I don't have to swallow these. This is dumb. I will say this. I am already surprised by how much variance there is between these. I would also say that with all but one exception, this guy. So far, I would say that you could interchange all of these in cocktails so far, and it would be subtle differences. You'd have a hard time telling. You mix any of these with cranberry juice or soda, and I think that their slight differences are going to mostly disappear. Now, this one does look like it has a slightly different color as well. There's a slight bit of yellowness maybe in here. I mean, minute, minute. And what I'm seeing, I'm looking at the cuts in the glass, and I'm seeing a slight different tonality in the way the light is coming through them. It could be a glass defect. I don't know. I think that one's got a slight yellow tinge to it. I taste nothing. What is going on here? This may have just become impossible. Okay. No. I think that's where it goes. I'm going to try to cleanse my palate a bit here. Just because this is tough, you know. That smells like something you would clean medical instruments with. I mean, do the other ones actually smell like that now I've cleansed my palate? No. Not even close. Oh, my God. I don't want to drink it. Oddly sweet. A lot of acetate. Very neutral. Bad aftertaste. All right. Number H. Number H. Very neutral odor. I mean, you could almost convince someone it was a glass of water, I would say. Malty. Sweet finish. I think that's probably an expensive one. That one I might not move yet. It's very flat. It's very neutral. It's mildly sweet. Extremely inoffensive. No off flavors. So, I mean, that could be. A lot of it's marketing, you know. Some of this, like the one that I kept moving up, it's malty. It doesn't really, not what you necessarily want from a vodka. But in my head, I'm like, well, they might be leaning on that. They might be saying that that's desirable. That makes it got more character. Something floating in this one. It's either a dead bug or a piece of lint. I'm going to go give you the benefit of the doubt and say it's a piece of lint. It's a fumey one. Huh. Weirdly citrusy. Bright. I mean, I like this as a spirit. I don't think it's bad. It is a little fumey and a little acidity. I mean, this one, it's not yet, but it almost kind of feels like a bit like a gin. It's gonna be tough. Do they charge more for that or not? I don't know. Fuck. All right. What's Jay say? Jay, how's it going, Mr. Jay? Isn't Mr. Jay that runway walking coach? That's Mr. Jay. Oh, I'm sorry. It's Ms. Jay. You're right. I knew it was one. It was. I thought, well, there's also Dr. Jay and a lot of acetate. Very sweet and malty. I don't know. It's tough because on one hand, vodka as a category is supposed to be super neutral. I don't know that I would say that's super neutral. So I don't know where it goes in the ranking of cheap to expensive. It's not B. That's just garbage. It's gotta be. It's tough because it feels like a completely different category of spirit. I'm gonna put it there. I mean, none of these are final. I'm gonna have to go through a second time. I'm gonna have another piece of orange. Gotta stay hydrated, you know? I need these electrolytes. Oh, for ****'s sake, man. All right. Cloudy number B. That's gotta be the cheap one. That doesn't even... What is that? If somebody's marketing B as expensive, I will say that they are objectively ripoff artists. See, I might put G below D. There's a weird funkiness to this one. It's a drink off! What's better to have? A mild wet dog or a mildly astringent. I'm gonna lie down and die for about an hour and then I'll come back with an answer. It's tough. It's tough to say. I don't know. Whose idea was this episode? Was it my idea or your idea? Whichever of us it was, we're an asshole. I might have put this in the real wrong spot. Okay, so the next question is this. Oh, I don't like it. I'm standing by that order. That's my final answer. Okay, so let me add a few points so we can decide where to take it from there. Yeah. What'd I do? As of right now, before double checking, you're exactly on 80. Wow. I think that this is the Lairds. Uh, no, it is not. That is... See, because I'm going to tell you... It's Everclear. Okay, no, that's fine. You can say that. So that's the Everclear. Yeah, that makes... I mean, I'm surprised by that, to be honest. It is also... On the other hand, I'm not surprised by it because it's the only one that's a completely different color than the rest. So, and I even said that that might be the Everclear early on. The only reason I was thinking it might not be the Everclear is because Everclear should be 95% ethanol. So, I mean, only, you know, so little of it isn't ethanol. It's water, really. I don't know what happens there. That must be the tap water or Everclear is not as pure ethanol as they say it is. My body's moving around a lot now, sort of involuntarily. You've already told me this is the Everclear. Let's put that in there. So that's the Everclear. And how much was that? What do we got here? Vodka for a G. What's I? The 100 proof Stoli. Interesting. A? Absolute. The Gutz. J? It's the Wheatly. Vodka at $6,100. So this one for price point should have been over here. Interesting. Yeah, it was close. Yeah. Got a whole handle of stuff. Wow. All right. So let's pull the screen up here. Okay. So down there, you can see the correct order that these should have gone in and you can see how on the money or off the money I was. Tito's kind of a bargain, huh? Wheatley's a bargain. Nice. Yeah. So basically I ordered them as I thought they tasted by quality, right? So that's a subjective thing. You can set the price point anywhere you want in the marketplace. So Grey Goose, which tastes like this, it's all the way over here. Where's the kettle one? Kettle one. Kettle one is where it belong. Absolute. That's actually its slot. So the absolute is. I got that. The Stoli. Where's that belong? So that's over here. Well, so the price point for the Stoli is up here. But keep in mind, this is the 100 proof Stoli. We really should have had the 80 proof for this. You're paying for that less water in the bottle, is what I'm saying. And by that market mentality, this is a huge bargain. And then the Wheatley is in third. Is that by price or where does Wheatley wind up? Oh, wow. So the Wheatley is all the way over. So this Wheatley, which tastes like a number three, is priced all the way over here. Well, that's very interesting. All right. I'm going to put that screen back right now. Yeah. OK, that makes things a little easier. You want to bring out the poison? Who's going to do it? I think it's got to be Meredith. The consequences of the game was that if I failed to accrue 80 points, I would have to drink this. Apparently, I scored exactly 80 points, which is something of a I'm very happy about that. Something of a small miracle. However, that now means that Meredith must drink the punishment. He hasn't met Meredith before. Bring her out. This is Meredith. She helps me make the show. I thought I had him. I don't know if we can hear her. She's not mic'd up, but we'll live. OK, one step. You're one step. You should come center. This is dangerous. I know what's in it. So why don't you tell everybody what's in there? Do you want to tell everybody afterwards? What were you trying to do to me? Cowling wine. Cowling wine. Cocktail sauce. That's what all the... Oh, like from shrimp? Shrimp cocktail sauce? We've got some cucumber bitters. We've got Lenfarkis, the scotch, yeah? You put good scotch in there, you bastards? And banana liqueur. It was almost a drink until you got to that. That's a weird choice. Enjoy. It's the gift that keeps on giving, that cowling wine, isn't it? Today we played the vodka game. A little bit of a different game. A little bit of a different kind of an episode here. Full credit to, I guess, Good Mythical Morning. I don't know if Good Mythical Morning's ever done this on their show, but it certainly feels like a Good Mythical Morning episode. So kudos to you, Mr. Good Mythical Mornings. I'd love to hang out with you all sometime if we ever get around to it. If not, you know, if I'm just some low rent, no talent, no hack, whatever, that's fine. That's fine. I understand. I'm very pleased with how well I did. I'm also really surprised at how much variation there is in these vodkas, and also to find out which ones were really great deals and which ones are not. So I guess I stand a little bit corrected on my assumptions about vodka. Really, I really actually thought that the Everclear mixed with water was going to be great vodka. It turns out it's not. Oh well. Turns out I was mistaken. About that at least. I did well enough to get 80 points here. I mean, I thought that, yeah, whatever. Right, because I didn't put the bottles in. I put the cups in. My Twitter is HowToDrink. My Instagram is HowToDrink. My Patreon is patreon.com slash howtodrink. I have a Twitch account at twitch.tv slash Greg from HTD. I hope you will check those things out. I would love to tell you that I've got other episodes like this, but actually, no, I don't have any other episodes like this. I do have tasting episodes where I've tasted, oh, a bunch of Irish whiskeys, or I did like a demo on all the different kinds of not Irish whiskeys, or I did a video all about the different types of gin. That kind of, all the different absinthes I could get my hands on. Those kinds of things, if you're interested in this, might be great. And I think that probably in the future, if this does well, we will always format those as a game, because why not? Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you will check out some more of my episodes and enjoy the show. Toodles. Don't do this at home. This was dumb.