Do you notice different quality in the alcohol depending on where it's from? (Same brand, different production spots)

[justaguyyy]

Growing up in a small Eastern European country, I always heard about a two tier standard of quality for many things - clothing, electronics, furniture and even alcohol.
A famous example that you heard all the time from my Russian friends was the quality of Vodka - Stolichnaya in particular was always brought up. The vodka that was produced for the Western market was made in Latvia, while the Russian market was supplied from within Russia and the first time I could compare the two vodkas, the Russian one was better in every way - smoother, tastier, you name it. Another example, though not alcohol, is people prefer the German Coca Cola over the one produced locally in Eastern Europe.
Is this something you check for now? It would obviously only apply to mass produced brands, but I'm still curious.

 

[Burr77]

Try a Stella from the UK and a Stella from Belgium and they are worlds apart. The main ingredient is water, so the local water quality dictates the quality of the final product!

 

[xray7]

In my youth, I could take the Pepsi challenge with German brewed Becks versus any of their brewed under licence stuff - the German brewed Becks was smoother and cleaner in flavour profile by a country mile. I once had a barman argue this point with me at a casino and I proved him wrong, and got a few bottles of the licenced crap for free for my trouble.

Similar story with the Japanese beers. Cask Sapporo pissed on the canned stuff.

Growing up, the Russians I encountered looked down their noses at people who drank Russian vodka brands - they all preferred the Polish stuff.

 

[Snooky]

I always swear by that a pint of the black stuff (Guinness) tastes better when I’m in Ireland, as opposed to drinking it anywhere else. Not sure how much is an old wives tale, but I prefer drinking it as close to The Liffey as I can get!

 

[Andrew_watchlist]

Yes this, I fell in love with Czech beer first time I went there, bought what I thought was Staropramen in UK, nope tasted like every other UK brewed lager, shit. Thankfully Lidl do actually import the real one.

 

[flashu]

Yes, same with cigarets, Coca Cola, food etc
There is a difference in between all these within different countries

 

[kentonyl]

Growing up in a small Eastern European country, I always heard about a two tier standard of quality for many things - clothing, electronics, furniture and even alcohol.
A famous example that you heard all the time from my Russian friends was the quality of Vodka - Stolichnaya in particular was always brought up. The vodka that was produced for the Western market was made in Latvia, while the Russian market was supplied from within Russia and the first time I could compare the two vodkas, the Russian one was better in every way - smoother, tastier, you name it. Another example, though not alcohol, is people prefer the German Coca Cola over the one produced locally in Eastern Europe.
Is this something you check for now? It would obviously only apply to mass produced brands, but I'm still curious.

No way another person has my avatar. RIP to a king. Now I feel like I need to change mine.

 

[APjumbo]

The same brand of beer always tastes better out of my brother’s fridge than my own.

 

[justaguyyy]

No way another person has my avatar. RIP to a king. Now I feel like I need to change mine.

ah, a fellow postal service enjoyer!

 

[The Marquis]

Nope, but Fanta in Italy is way better than Fanta in USA. We use real orange.
And Nutella in Italy as a higher percent of Hazelnuts then outside Italy and so on….