Casey Posted July 30, 2007 Share Posted July 30, 2007 Saturday last being my best mate's birthday, I thought I'd go buy a bottle of something decent. I looked around and settled on a bottle of Chivas Regal 18 year old. (Blended Scotch). Now, what did I get for the local equivalent of eighty-six US Dead Presidents? To be sure, some of the smoothest Scotch I've ever tasted, which of course one would expect for that many Dead Presidents. However, there was also 750 ml in the bottle, and, wonder of wonders, they'd even corked the bloody thing! Now that last is something I've not seen since I were a lad well below drinking age. So what, you ask? Well, there was a time all spirits were sold in 26 (British) fluid ounce bottles. These became 750 ml bottles when we went metric. Then sometime in the Seventies they cut the amount down to 700 ml (to combat drunkenness, the sheeple were told), but you still had to pay the same price. Now I begin to see the way of it; if you pay premium prices you get the extra 50 ml you're entitled to, or you used to be, that is. Ain't it wonderful to be a Capitalist pig? Speaking of the aforesaid, if you care to multiply the missing 50 ml of Scotch you get when you buy one of the lesser breeds of whisky (and that includes single malts like Glenfiddich or Glenlivet) by the millions of bottles of these that are produced for the Australian market then you will surely see that the distillers and others are on to what my favourite fictional wannabe arch Capitalist pig, Arthur Daley, would've called, "A nice little earner". And I can just hear his sidekick Tel nodding his head and saying, "Yeah, yer right, I wouldn't mind a bit o' that meself, Guv!" Yet it's not only the distillers who are oinking all the way to the bank; our supermarkets have tumbled to the racket as well. A bottle of Dolmio's pasta sauce for example, used to contain 550 grams of the stuff. Now, it contains 500 grams, but again, you pay the same price. That, the sheeple are told, is because of the inflation the Government says we don't have. Either you pay more for 550 grams or you pay the same price for less. Good, innit? Casey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 30, 2007 Share Posted July 30, 2007 Consider yourself lucky. We still have 750ml bottles here, but if you want a bottle of 18yo Chivas you are paying more than 100 USD. Likewise, you can't get a bottle of single malt anything for less than 100 USD, but most are selling at 200-300 USD. Johnny Walker Red and Jameson's are selling for $60 and Jim Beam is $50. You can still get a 500ml bottle of great Russian vodka for $10 and a decent bottle for $5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jun Posted July 30, 2007 Share Posted July 30, 2007 My wife is always quick to point out that Australians get ripped off at the cash register everyday. Her favourite gripe is the good ol' bag o' crisps. In Japan a bag of crisps - or packet of just about anything else - is always full to the brim. In Ozz the bags are half-full (half-empty?) the rest being naught but air. Manufacturers are always quick to point out that their products are sold by weight - so why the big packets then? I don't drink alcohol, never have, but I once owned a Japanese shot-bar (yeah, go figure) in Japan a bottle of Johnny Walker Red was $90 U.S. back in the mid-nineties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 At the same price as a few years back, candy bars have become anorexic ghosts of their former selves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuaiDan Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 Trivia:30 or 40 years ago Chivas was low grade rocket fuel. It wasn't until they artificially jacked up the price and marketed it as a premium scotch that they started realizing a profit. I'm confident that besides the "expensive = good" rule, there's a flip side,"inexpensive = bad" rule that applies to our thinking as well. After all, in English, the word cheap doesn't just mean inexpensive; it has come to mean inferior, too. In marketing lore, the classic case of this phenomenon is that of Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey, which had been a struggling brand until its managers decided to raise its price to a level far above its competitors. Sales skyrocketed, even though nothing was changed in the product itself (Aaker, 1991). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 Trivia:30 or 40 years ago Chivas was low grade rocket fuel. It wasn't until they artificially jacked up the price and marketed it as a premium scotch that they started realizing a profit. I haven't tried the 18yo version, which I'm guessing is pretty decent stuff. But their most popular just plain Chivas Regal is still rocket fuel IMO. But then I'm a single malt man myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sexton Blake Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 A horror story for drinkers. A couple bought a bottle of whiskey from a supermarket and after a few glasses decided it didn't taste right so took it back. The guy in the supermarket tried it and he had to agree with them so sent it away to be tested. The verdict was that it was whiskey but that it had been filtered through someone's body (someone had drunk it and peed into the bottle to fill it again). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 That's nasty, but over here it's even worse. If you unluckily happen upon a counterfeit bottle your liver goes into toxic shock. Last year there was an epidemic and Russians were dropping like flies; even the non alchos. It's why I tend to buy only from larger retail stores and stick with the upper price range bottles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuaiDan Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 Interesting dilemma... If faced with the choice of drinking methanol or human urine, I wonder what most people would choose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted August 1, 2007 Author Share Posted August 1, 2007 That's nasty, but over here it's even worse. If you unluckily happen upon a counterfeit bottle your liver goes into toxic shock. Last year there was an epidemic and Russians were dropping like flies; even the non alchos. It's why I tend to buy only from larger retail stores and stick with the upper price range bottles. On this note, I am happy not to be living in Colonial times in Australia. Even beer drinking in those days could be quite a bad experience. In the 1860's the Government of the then Colony of Victoria obtained and tested samples of 100 beers (or concoctions which passed for beer) and found no less than 60 to be unfit for human consumption, even by the standards of the times. The Government soon thereafter passed an act amercing any brewer 100 Pounds who adulterated his beer with any, "Aloes, arsenic, opium, tobacco juice, Vitriol, Cocculus Indicus or Nux Vomica." (This is by no means the complete list by the way, but 'twill do to be going on with). Vitriol = Commercial name for Sulphuric Acid Cocculus Indicus = Poisonous herb Anamirta paniculata. It was commonly added to increase the buzz the drinker got from the beer, however its active principle was picrotoxin, a powerful convulsive poison. Nux Vomica = Medical term for strychnine. I'd think the Russians would have to be quite competitive fellows to cause more deleterious effects than these adulterants, but somehow I suspect they'd have been more than up to the task. Casey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts