After receiving numerous requests in our forum for some sort of BoozeBasher blind taste testing of liquor, we decided to make a few purchases and gather the vodka bottles we had around our homes for a vodka tasting. It worked out pretty nicely. We ended up with two top-shelf (Cîroc & Grey Goose), three middle-shelf (Smirnoff Red, Tanqueray Sterling, & Stolichnaya), and two bottom-shelf (Monoplowa & Burnett’s) offerings. I know we haven’t reviewed many of them yet, but reviews are on the way for all of them.
We poured two shots of each vodka into different numbered glasses and shuffled them all. The numbers were attached face-down, and a master list was hidden until after the test. All four of us were tasked with tasting all seven vodkas and ranking them in ascending order, with one being the best-tasting vodka and seven being the worst-tasting vodka. We did not discuss or share anything with each other until after we had all written down our results. We were a little surpised by the results…
Results by Reviewer
| Vodka | Kevin | Wade | Dan | Hunter | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cîroc | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.5 |
| Smirnoff Red | 1 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2.75 |
| Grey Goose | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 3.0 |
| Tanqueray Sterling | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3.0 |
| Monoplowa | 5 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 5.25 |
| Stolichnaya | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 5.75 |
| Burnett’s | 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 6.75 |
As you can see, Cîroc was the clear favorite. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who frequents this site since we selected it as our liquor of the month back in December of ‘07. It’s very smooth and has quite the pleasant sweet finish that we have come to adore. On the flip side, Burnett’s was the clear loser in the tasting. That also wasn’t a huge surprise if you go back and look at our review, you can see that it tastes much better when mixed than straight.
The Stolichnaya was a bit of a disappointment. We have always thought pretty highly of Stoli, but it consistently received a low ranking. The biggest surprise to us though was the Smirnoff Red. I remember hearing years ago that it won several big blind taste tests alongside “premium” vodka, but I never put much thought into it. Smirnoff was the first alcohol I ever consumed. I moved on from it, and for some reason, I’ve always had a bit of a misconception that it is a bad vodka. What’s funny is that nearly everyone else in the tasting claimed to not like Smirnoff as well. It was actually quite smooth and had decent flavor for a room temperature vodka. We were almost embarassed by voting this spirit so high, but there really must be something to it if we all voted it high on our lists. I challenge our readers to try a similar experiment and share the results on our forum.
The blind tasting was a fun experience, but in future blind tastings, we plan on testing no more than four of five spirits. After tasting so many spirits several times, your taste buds really lose their sharpness. We also found that two shots was a little too much to pour, but Wade and I had no problem consuming the leftovers. It’s funny how preceptions can often be wrong. I hope our results are helpful in some way.
Comments
Wow, that’s really interesting about the Smirnoff. Also, i gotta try this Ciroq stuff.
Pretty amazing. I think Smirnoff Red tastes like donkey piss and I am a little surprised that it did so well. Its up there with Jose Cuervo on the list of things that I will never drink…
smirnoff got an overall of 2.75, Grey Goose and Tanqueray got 3.0 so there’s really not that much keeping smirnoff tied for 3rd and 4th place. still tastes like russian piss to me
The fact the Smirnoff performed as well as it did actually pissed me off. Going into the tasting I maintained the same opinion of it you do, but I cannot really argue much with the result, especially because I managed to rank it #1. The vodkas did pretty much break themselves into 3 groups, although Burnett’s was easily much worst than everything else there, in most people’s opinion.
Wow, I’ve always thought Stoli was a little over-priced for what you get, but I wouldn’t have thought it would rank that low. Interesting results, you guys should do this for rum (my personal favorite drink).
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