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Comment by mberning | Hacker News Reader

This completely misses the boat on pizza, which is funny coming from a self-described pizza aficionado. Nobody gives a shit if their papa johns or dominoes pizza would be imperceptibly better were it transported in a better vessel. That's not why you order pizza delivery.

Not satisfied with ruining beer, bourbon, barbecue, and many other formerly enjoyable "every man" staples, now people have moved on to ruining pizza with a completely unnecessary level of snobbery.

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> Not satisfied with ruining …

Nothing has been ruined. Mediocre mass produced food and drink is still as widely available as it ever was. This sort of reverse snobbery puzzles me as much as regular snobbery does. Let people enjoy what they enjoy.

It absolutely has ruined the market for these things. 10 years ago decent bourbon was very accessible from a price and availability standpoint. Now people wait in line on Friday morning just for the chance to see what the distributor brought, and if there is anything decent, it is snatched up to hoard or sell on the secondary market. Of course, this has done nothing to the accessibility of the bottom shelf swill, but few people cared about 10 years ago and few people care about it now, so nothing has changed in that regard.

And very very few people could tell the difference between Pappy and Buffalo Trace in a blind taste test

Very true. Around where I live the worst is Weller (all variations) and Blantons. Nice bottles, but nothing out of this world. You could easily find them on the shelf years ago. Nowadays it is unheard of to see them for sale.

I find this very hard to believe if they are drunk at a sipping strength. A lot of bourbon comes at cask strength, which is good for mixers but is too strong to be drunk straight. The recommendation is to add a little water to get it to the proper alcohol percentage. I don't doubt that people will struggle to tell the difference if they are given cask-strength whisky, as the alcohol concentration can be overwhelming when consumed neat.

As for me, the highest I will go neat is 46%, and that's only for certain scotches.

My brother accidentally broke (more like destroyed but oh well) my nose as a kid when playing baseball and as a result I lost a lot of ability to discern smell and taste. I've tried so many wine, liquor, beer, and many more food tastings but it never really registers beyond what you'd expect when you lose that ability: salt, fat, the cool sting of liquor, fizzy, etc (if that makes sense).

I've bought some high priced liquors before and while my friends have been able to denote special things about them I just can't seem to; so, since I usually drink for a buzz anyway I've just settled on buying a 1.75L of 190 proof Everclear and water it down to 3L since it's essentially a more economic exchange anyway.

Silver linings...I guess.

I like sipping bourbon and rye whiskey, neat with maybe a splash of water.

My sense of smell is undamaged; I can taste some differences but a $75 bottle is not necessarily "better" than a $25 bottle to my taste. So I usually just buy the cheaper stuff.

There are plenty of good bourbons available off the shelf that aren't "bottom shelf swill." Talk about snobbery...

They are getting younger and younger. Lots of no age statements out there, lots of fake brands that don’t distill anything. There are still some decent options out there, but I’d hardly say plenty.

It depends on where you are in the Country. When I was in Tennessee in the fall people were asking us to bring Whiskey from where I live (Northeast US, NJ).

We are also getting odd outages, like Fancy Feast cat food selling out? But only the gravy lovers variety….

I am honestly confused by what you are saying here. It sounds like you're saying more people like the good stuff so it's gone quicker? But earlier you said Bourbon was an "everyman" item being ruined, which presumably means it was popular before. Is what was in the market now harder to find, because in my experience there are now more options available.

(EDIT): Oh I see Weller 12 is now incredibly expensive, and this article I'm about to read is about bourbon prices: https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/whiskey/bourbon-whiskey-...

Well, good for these smaller distilleries that people are now recognizing how good the product they make are. And there seem to be a like more smaller bourbon distilleries popping up to replace the price point that Weller 12 and similar drinks used to live in.

It's called hollowing out the middle.

So what you're actually saying is that capitalism has caused the asymmetric distribution of financial resources to the point where too many people can act as speculators in the market for all kinds of products, thus driving up prices and limiting availability to the "ordinary folk", and that further, this behavior has been expanded because of a media culture of fetishizing the curation of vaguely artisanal production?

I don't know about the first part, but the part about media culture seems manifestly true. I wonder how many bourbon channels there are on youtube that have over 100k subs. Quite a lot I'd have to guess. I think this cultural aspect fuels people to buy things up with little regard to their personal preferences. I know lots of people that picked up "bottle x" based purely on hype, not whether they like it or not.

I know lots of people that picked up "bottle x" based purely on hype, not whether they like it or not

There is a pizza place down the road, "State of Mind", which has all sorts of crazy slices. Mostly, they look good, with taste seemingly taking second place to cool, or wow factor.

I am convinced that the people ordering there, do so for appearances.

I think this makes sense, as a lot of people really have poor taste buds. They often, as in your example, cannot tell the flavour differences betwen burbons, but, want to get the good stuff.

So everyman bourbon has been ruined by every man trying to drink it?

I think this poster's literally just sad the thing they like got popular. Everyman bourbon is the cheap swill, this is the good stuff, the difference is that more people know about it now.

I does sort of suck when what you like gets popular and then it gets expensive. But that is a constant of life. Hiking gets popular, the trails you used to hike now have crowds and permits. A decent bottle of scotch doubles in 10 years. Decent bourbon prices go up. You have to adapt, find alternatives and look on the bright side. Small batch bourbon selling for more lets more people live their dream of running a small distillery. Find a local one you like, get to know the owner, and get discounts on case lots.

I used to be able to buy a handle of Weller 12 for $30.

Those were the days...

gasoline used to be $0.99/gallon when i was learning to drive, and it was only $0.05/gallon for my dad. so what's the point? inflation is shocking?

Weller 12 retails for $40 now (inflation) but is impossible to find and is now like $300+ on the secondary market.

Why is it so cheap on the primary market? Why are liquor stores/distributors not marking it up to a market clearing price?

The distillery doesn’t want to set market clearing prices for PR reasons. They also forbid authorized retailers from charging market clearing prices. So liquor stores either break the rules or “allocate” the bottles to their best customers.

that's like blaming RPi for how expensive they are even though RPi has not changed prices. it's also like blaming the band because the scalpers are charging so much for their ticket prices. it's not the band's fault nor the maker's fault someone buys them all up in bulk and then resells them.

Who blames the maker? We blamed snobs and then you came in blazing with this completely inane comment about inflation.

You can stop doubling down now.

right, and i just spun it back to being inline with your reselling complaints. nobody doubled down.

The notion that snobbery "ruins" the category seems like an expression of drama. There is, as there has always been, an uncountable amount of non-"snobby" beer, bourbon, barbecue, and pizza (even for each individual's definition of "snobby"). Additionally, if you are anything like the many people I know who hate "snobby" things, you may be lumping some just-plain-good things under that description simply because of a focus on imagery and identity.

As a counterpoint, there times when I'm in a city traveling for work and I'd like to get a normal meal (burger, pizza, comfort food, etc) but all I can find is an overpriced hipster modern riff on said meal, or a really shitty chain version.

You know which one of these I really dislike? Donuts. Time was a man could buy a good, regular-ass chocolate long john or cruller at any place that had Donut in the name.

Nowadays it's all Rosewater Fritters and Fruity Pebbles sprinkled into the icing and all manner of other bullshit. Just gimme a goddamn donut, I don't need it to be an expression of your personal creative journey.

Mostly just ranting for fun, there's actually a few nearby "old school" donut shops in my area with really great offerings. But I do chuckle when I see the $4 hipster donuts at some of the other places in town.

>Nobody gives a shit if their papa johns or dominoes pizza would be imperceptibly better were it transported in a better vessel. That's not why you order pizza delivery.

I don't know where you live, but where I live, we can order better pizza than those two horrid chains for delivery.

did you read the article? it made the same conclusion so why are you mad?

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