No, cognac. But only the good stuff. "What about middle priced cognacs?" you ask.

Get ready to embark on an odyssey of price distortion. For someone who is used to a $22 bottle of liquor, taking a step up to the high 30s or high 40s for a bottle of liquor the same size can seem like a kind of extravagance. But you say, "Well I'm ready for the good stuff. And why not? I deserve it." So you enter the world of VSOP and feel very ritzy indeed. And man oh man is it a step up. Class. Class in a bottle. Complexity! Good Lord! How many things are going on in this glass at one time?! Where has cognac been all my life?! Caramel, sure, but what's that other thing I'm chasing around the glass? It's there for a fleeting moment. I can almost catch it and then it's gone. Cinnamon? Was that cinnamon? Surely not. And what's that other thing? Is it... fruit? Is that a fruit taste? I swear I know that taste - why can't I put my finger on it? And nut. There's some nut for sure. And... pastry? This is amazing! You get excited. A whole new world opens up. At about 2:30 or 3:00, after your lunch has had time to settle in, you exhale same as always after a given breath and there it is. Cognac. The taste. You just tasted it. It's calling to you. Hurry clock, hurry! Let me get home to my baby. I'm just going to have one glass. But one glass is all it takes. GOD WHY WON'T THAT CLOCK HURRY UP?!

Weeks or months later you're at a bar and you've never had cognac at a bar but now cognac's your thing so you go see what they've got back there in the spot on the shelf you've never looked before. Huh. All they have is VS from either Hennessy or Courvoisier. But you say why not. And then you taste it and your pampered precious VSOP tastebuds recoil in sorrow and effront. Noooo! So tired! So lifeless! Why would they do this to cognac? This cheap, pedestrian world is not for me! And you scuttle back to VSOP town feeling slightly soiled and ashamed. What do these plebeians know about cognac? Nothing! It's just another booze to them. Pfft. And who are those forsaken fools at the bar asking to have it mixed with Coke? The nerve! Would they take a Rolls Royce to the monster truck rally? They should be whipped in the street. But on second thought... they are mixing with VS. It's really not good for anything else on its own. Might as well mix it like some kind of common night club swill come to think of it. Hm. Grudgingly you give them that one BUT IF YOU SEE SOMEBODY MIXING VSOP THERE WILL BE WORDS.

But as you read about cognac, which you increasingly do, you see that XO is apparently where the real action's at. But you say, "$100? $120? That's absurd. I'll never pay that much for a bottle of anything. how much better could it really be? And I'm not paying $25 for a glass of it in a bar either. No no no. It's sad, but I'll never taste XO unless I happen to make friends with a rich person who's feeling generous." But. you keep. reading about it. It's there, always there tempting you. Teasing you. Calling to you with its siren song, and you without a ship. You can only catch snippets of it on the breeze from the beach as the wind shifts. You know it would destroy you yet you start fantasizing about building a boat. Sorrow. Agitation. And then one day you realize... CHRISTMAS! "Yes! I will ask for a bottle of XO something for Christmas! It's all I want anyway. It's perfect! Christmas is the time for big ticket items. Mom and Dad will get me this! Or the girlfriend. She will get me this. Finally!"

And then that day comes, and the cylindrical present under the tree has a tag with your name on it. Ohhh sweet nectar, you will be mine tonight! Finally we can join together in love! And you wait. You hold the elegant bottle throughout the day. You caress it. Dinnertime comes. Yes yes, Mother, the roast was lovely, thank you very much. Then there are dishes to be washed, things to be put away. Nighttime has fallen and the bustle and buzz of the day begins to wind down to an evening's calm. A log pops in the fire. Almost. Almost, my sweet. My... my precious. Finally the time has come. Gently you peel off that foil wrapper, exposing the cork cap. Your special glass is ready. You read about which kind would focus the bouquet most advantageously. No old-world globe snifter for you, nay. Those are only for people who think they know what they're doing. You pour a modest amount, you hold it up to the light. Beautiful! And you take your first sniff. Ohh my. Ohhhhhhh my. Oh my! What is in there?! I want it! But no. No. Resist. You've done your reading and you know you must let it breathe for at least ten minutes as you swirl and sniff, swirl and sniff, so that oxidation can coax forth its full identity. And then finally you can wait no more.

That first small sip reaches your lips and rolls roundly onto your waiting tongue. You work it around a bit and swallow and exhale. Oh. my. goodness. Even more complex. There are like 7 things happening in here fore sure and more I can't identify. Wood, honey, cake, passionfruit, mineral, apple, violets. Did I say VSOP? Surely I never said VSOP. VSOP is for hobos and club lizards. VSOP is for people who only think they know what they're talking about. XO, now. XO is the pinnacle. This is what cognac is supposed to be about. The artistry! The subtlety! The complexity! This is art. It's art in a glass. Why doesn't the whole world know about this? Why is anyone doing anything anywhere other than drinking XO cognac? This... this is the nectar of the GODS! Ohh sweet bottle, how I cherish thee. $100 is nothing. It is meaningless, a mere technicality. I will pay $100 for you. Of course I will pay $100 for you.

And what's $110 or $115 if I've come this far? Why deny myself the peers of this exquisite specimen? If this cognac is this good, what might I be missing if I don't try others at this level? Shouldn't... shouldn't I try them all? Now $150, that's a bit much. That's kind of asking a lot. But I can explore this level, this price range. I can do that. Not a big deal. Gotta spend your money on something, right? I'll just cut back on other things. Some people buy a lot of video games. Others go to a lot of shows. Others collect things. It's a hobby, that's all. People have hobbies and they spend money on them and this is my hobby.

But where can I find them, these other XOs? The local store only has one or two XOs in that locked glass cabinet with the other fancy scotches and gold-laced fancy tequila bottles. Where can I find others? I'll travel. I'll travel anywhere within a few hours. Let me ask. I'll ask on the internet. Someone will know. I must find more XO cognac and I must find it now. WHY DON'T THESE IDIOTS STOCK MORE XO COGNAC? Have they not tried XO cognac? Are they delusional? Look, I've been doing my reading and I know that the XOs from the major four makers aren't even the best ones, not by a long shot. Why don't they carry others here? I want interesting XOs from the minor houses. I have to find them. Anything, I'll try anything. Somebody in this town has to have some goddamn XO cognac!

And then you find some others. One or two here or there in dusty corners of liquor stores all across town. Another on a business trip. Hey now! These are great! And so different. What interestingly different flavor profiles. I need to keep buying XO congac. This is fun! I'm going to take down all my tasting notes and research other people's tasting notes online. I need to see what else is out there. Hey... I can order cognac online and have it shipped right here to my door! All these brands I've read about but can't find in stores. I can get them! New York. California. Hmm, shipping is going to be a lot. Might as well get a couple of other bottles to be efficient about this rather than pay shipping three times. But I'll keep it to three. That's reasonable. Won't be more that $350 or so total. $365. Not a big deal. Look, if I was ever going to try that $160 one it might as well be now. I'll just buy it once. Just the once, just to see. Otherwise I'll just stick to stuff down in the $100-$120 range. That's reasonable.

Oh my, these are fantastic. So good. Wow, each is better than the last, and then they switch places. Let me read some more about the good stuff. Hold on now... hold on... what's that you say? There... there are cognacs beyond the XO level? Oh no. Oh no. $300? Good lord! $600?! $2,400?! $6,000?! Good God! That's it. I have to stop. I'm never paying those prices. I don't care how good it is. I mean, how good could it possibly be... right? Okay maybe the $300 one. I mean, I'd just get it the once. Just to see. It's Delamain after all - you know it would be worth it. I could ask for it for Christmas. I could show them that French site that will ship transatlantic. That makes sense...

So you see, grasshopper, there is no middle price range. It all depends on where you are on the cognac price distortion continuum. My best advice to anyone is to drop what they're doing right now and go buy some good cognac. And my other best advice is don't ever buy that first bottle of cognac. It will own you. You will lose perspective. Then one day you'll come home from the store, eager to liberate your latest find from its elegant box, and a group of seven of your friends and family members will be sitting uncomfortably in your living room for some reason, and some unfamiliar balding guy with a mustache and a clipboard will be in there with them. "Turkeypants, we're all here today because we love you. And we're concerned about you. We don't want to see you throw away your life savings like this anymore. You have to come up for air. You have to see what this is doing to you. It's just cognac. Why are you doing this? There are no fewer than 18 bottles of open cognac in your cabinet right now, and that's not counting the mini bottles or the 20cl promotional varietal bottles you special ordered. Please stop doing this to yourself!"