Does it really matter what brand your booze is?

Does a higher price mean better quality?

We decided to put a fair amount of alcohol to the test to see.

Armed with a blindfold and an entire cabinet’s worth of vodka, gin, beer, wine and whiskey, we wanted to judge our favourite tipples only on taste, to eliminate the stigma around bargain booze once and for all.

First up were the beers. Disappointingly, it was difficult to tell the difference between lagers here – they all just tasted like beer.

Coors Light
Disappointing. It turned out this was the cheapest branded beer, and it showed. It tasted watered down dirty pint.

Sol
This was the biggest let down. It stank, but then again I suppose it’s not supposed to be drunk blindfolded and then shotted.

Brasser
Drinkable but barely. On the upside, when not blindfolded it’s one of the cheapest beers you can buy – and it has a cute stubby little bottle.

Asda own
It was 90p for 4 tins… and it tasted like it was 90p for 4 tins. This one did not eliminate the stigma behind cheap booze, it tasted truly awful. The less said about this monstrosity the better.

Next up was the wines, and we were left disappointed by our immature palates.

Despite choosing what we thought were a decent variety of reds – two Echo Falls, two Merlots and one ominous looking “fusion” they all tasted the same.

Unable to tell the difference, we concluded they were all just sort of vinegary.

The same went for the white – it was virtually impossible to tell the difference between these ones, despite one of them looking ridiculously budget, boxed and simply called “white wine”.

Blindfolded they smelled really grim, and tasted worse – but then again they’re probably not made to be tasty but to be fancy adult grape juice that makes you feel happy inside.

You know what doesn’t make you feel happy inside? Gin. That was next.

Gordon’s

It smelled about as classy as I could imagine a shot could smell – but it was still a shot of gin, and it was still disgusting.

Hendricks
This is a supposedly much fancier Gin. It was admittedly way more expensive, but equally disgusting.

After that (getting hazy here), we were onto the vodkas.

Sainsbury’s

First up was Sainsbury’s own brand. Despite its intimidating monster bottle, blindfolded it actually wasn’t that bad.

Absolute
This smelled like absolute regret and burnt like a bitch going down.

Russian Standard
Maybe it’s because we’d burnt our taste buds off and desensitised ourselves, maybe it’s because we were already drunk, but by this point it’s all starting to taste the same…

But bravely, we still moved onto the rum.

Kraken
First impressions are good – it smells like vanilla. Unfortunately it doesn’t taste like vanilla and it is awful.

Mount Gay
The most expensive one and the biggest disappointment. It doesn’t even taste like rum.

Captain Morgan
Perhaps the best known on the list, this one was the most familiar. We’d know the Captain from a mile away. This was the best without a doubt.

We were nearly at the home stretch. Livers aching, we moved on, finally, to the whiskeys.

Jack Daniels
I mean by the time you’re doing shots of Jack Daniels it’s clear you’ve been making poor life choices. The shot of Jack sucks. I am feeling low.

Monkey Shoulder
A big bottle of this is far from cheap and it smelt like every bad decision you’ve ever made. Not impressed.

After our experiment we reached this depressing conclusion – shots suck no matter what.

And mixing drinks messes you up instantly.