Which mass-marketed spirits are pretty good, in your opinion? For example, you’re at a terrible hotel bar, the wine and beer options are horrid, but there’s a decent shelf stocked with various Beam/Diageo/Brown-Forman/Bacardi brands. What are you reaching for? I ask because I was recently in this very situation, had a Dewer’s White Label, and while not particularly sophisticated thought it was a decent after dinner drink.
Campari. Most big house VSOP Cognacs are perfectly decent.
I’m totally unconvinced by the importance of brand with vodka and gin unless used in a martini.
Kahlua on the rocks is pretty good when it dilutes a little.
And most big name gins make a perfectly decent gimlet.
White rum. 42below vodka. 100% blue agave reposado…
Depends on how mass marketed we are talking. Most good bourbons that are mass marketed are good. I’d take Knob Creek, Buffalo Trace, Maker’s Mark, or Gentleman Jack in a pinch. And naturally any of the higher priced bourbons.
Others I like:
Horintas Reposado
Patron Reposado
Belevedere Vodka
Titos Vodka
Both Vodka’s are good with a little tonic.
It depends on how high up the food chain the spirits go- like do they only have Jack or do they have Gentleman Jack. I don’t ever buy GJ for the house but I would buy it at a restaurant that was loaded up with Brown Forman stuff.