Just this very day, I had a conversation with one of my students about the economic concept known as “price elasticity,” or the degree to which price shapes demand for a particular product. One of the major determinants of elasticity is the availability of competing products.
Oh shit, everyone fell asleep after the first paragraph. No, no! Come back! All I mean is that you'll pay more for something if it's unique, and less if it isn't. So if we're talking about whether something's “good” or not, and whether it's worth the money, a lot of that hinges on this question: what else is out there?
In the case of Stoli Elit, a very capable and pretty good vodka overall, the answer is “a lot.” In most of these run-downs, I tend to talk first about the qualities of the spirit before getting to the price analysis, but let's put the cart before the horse today.
“At $50, the Stoli Elit simply isn’t a differentiated enough Vodka to warrant the spend.”
On one hand, you have a lot of good vodkas that are very close to, if not the equal of Stoli Elit—at a much friendlier price. Belvedere has a lot of what I like from Elit, as does Russian Standard Gold. Both are regularly sourced for about $20 in comparison to the $50 asking price for the Elit. On the other hand, you can ascend the price ladder just a little further and step into something like the Beluga Allure or Imperia, which offer unique flavors like cinnamon and nutmeg. And hey: any quality that’s even marginally distinctive goes a long way in the world of Vodka. Those two bottles, incidentally, are about $40.
So the Elit is “good.” If we judge it in a vacuum where the bottle just drops out of the sky and into our hands, and we don't have to spend any money on it, it's got a great grain-forward character. It uses a combination of wheat and rye, so it has some body and that delicious Jordan almond / marzipan taste common to (again) Belvedere and the chewy depth of (again) Russian Standard Gold. Over ice, I was aware that I was drinking a good vodka—and I was very appreciative of that!—but I wasn't bowled over.
Returning to the idea of economics again (briefly), there's an entire class of products called “Veblen Goods” that work totally out of sync with the idea that the more expensive something is, the less people want it. In other words, the $100,000 Rolex becomes more coveted and desired than the $75,000 Rolex. Make some things more expensive, and people want them even more.
The problematic aspect about Vodka, as an entire class of spirits, is that there's a tendency for people to equate spending gonzo bucks for a bottle with being “smooth.” The more you spend, the smoother it must be, right?
Well, that only works up to a point. My suspicion is that Stoli Elit is classifying itself as a mega-premium vodka with the packaging to match. If you want a vodka that has some good secondary flavors, a clean quality, and drinks like water, you can have the world in your hands for twenty bucks. Maybe forty if you feel like tasting something great. At $50, the Stoli Elit simply isn't differentiated enough to warrant the spend.
