Blind taste testing is essential. And since your tastes will differ from others, you can't rely on other people's results.
The spouse and I did a blind test on about 20 beers sold in mixed six-packs in the grocery store, and as a result switched our staple cooking-and-drinking beer from Yuengling Lager (amber lager) to Dos Equis Ambar (another amber lager), with the North American (Coors) version of Killian's Irish Red (actually another amber lager) also beating the incumbent. We both hated the pilsners and the IPAs, but disagreed on the darker varieties. We did agree that Guinness Blonde (an "American" lager) was the worst thing ever sold anywhere. We awarded it last place, and someone else ought to take mercy on its soul, because we will damn it forevermore whenever we hear its name (torment be upon it).
It's a bit more difficult to do wines, because it's really hard to find them in 12oz. bottles. So the wines get a series of "challenger versus incumbent" blind comparisons, between only two wines at a time. We have progressed as far as determining that we both prefer sweet to dry, and that some of the cheap stuff is better than some of the mid-priced stuff. The current champion is a sparkling fruity wine from Costco, which isn't always in stock. That said, some cheap wine is truly awful. Plenty of the stuff we try gets immediately demoted to cooking duty.
It's a lot more difficult to test distilled liquor, mainly because critical judgment deteriorates when you're drunk, and it wouldn't really be cost effective for us, unless we went to a bar with a half-dozen different brands on the bottom shelf. Six 375mL bottles of vodka would last us about 2 years. Some of the cheap brands don't sell in smaller bottles. And we would have to retest each after putting some through the pitcher filter.
If everyone did blind taste tests, I think the market for expensive "premium" liquor would collapse. So much of what you pay for at the upper end of the scale is just brand posturing and vapor.
The spouse and I did a blind test on about 20 beers sold in mixed six-packs in the grocery store, and as a result switched our staple cooking-and-drinking beer from Yuengling Lager (amber lager) to Dos Equis Ambar (another amber lager), with the North American (Coors) version of Killian's Irish Red (actually another amber lager) also beating the incumbent. We both hated the pilsners and the IPAs, but disagreed on the darker varieties. We did agree that Guinness Blonde (an "American" lager) was the worst thing ever sold anywhere. We awarded it last place, and someone else ought to take mercy on its soul, because we will damn it forevermore whenever we hear its name (torment be upon it).
It's a bit more difficult to do wines, because it's really hard to find them in 12oz. bottles. So the wines get a series of "challenger versus incumbent" blind comparisons, between only two wines at a time. We have progressed as far as determining that we both prefer sweet to dry, and that some of the cheap stuff is better than some of the mid-priced stuff. The current champion is a sparkling fruity wine from Costco, which isn't always in stock. That said, some cheap wine is truly awful. Plenty of the stuff we try gets immediately demoted to cooking duty.
It's a lot more difficult to test distilled liquor, mainly because critical judgment deteriorates when you're drunk, and it wouldn't really be cost effective for us, unless we went to a bar with a half-dozen different brands on the bottom shelf. Six 375mL bottles of vodka would last us about 2 years. Some of the cheap brands don't sell in smaller bottles. And we would have to retest each after putting some through the pitcher filter.
If everyone did blind taste tests, I think the market for expensive "premium" liquor would collapse. So much of what you pay for at the upper end of the scale is just brand posturing and vapor.