Sommelier Tries Every Costco Liquor

It tastes like the liquid that's in chocolate.

You know how you have the chocolates, you bite it,

and something squirts out, that's what that tastes like.

I think there's a time and place for a lot of stuff.

I'm still wrapping my head around

peanut butter [beep] whiskey,

but this I can get close to.

I understand this.

Hey, I'm Sommelier Andre Hueston Mack,

and today we're gonna be tasting the Costco line

of Kirkland Signature liquors.

Costco sells its lines of spirit

for a fraction of the cost of name brands,

but are there any good?

Well today we're gonna taste them and find out.

So Costco is the largest purchaser, retailer,

of spirits and wine, alcoholic beverages.

Not only do they sell like the name brands

that we all know and love,

but they've created their own line of wines and spirits

called Kirkland Signature.

They are really, really inexpensive.

So today we're gonna find out if this is

a really great deal.

Are these comparable to the name brands

that we all know and love and are they any good?

So first up we have Kirkland Signature American Vodka,

13.99.

This is a 1.75 liter.

I think most of you call it a handle,

it's a little less than a half gallon.

So a standard bottle of alcohol is 750 milliliters,

so this is larger for sure.

This was sitting next to same size bottle

of Tito's going for like $32.

You think about the price point, this is about half.

So Costco is not making these, they're not distilling,

they're not bottling,

they have a relationship with a distiller,

they're purchasing them and selling them exclusively,

only in their store, under the Kirkland Signature brand.

Vodka is made from distilling grain, corn, wheat, barley,

whatever you have, they're using corn here.

Water is heated and they basically take the evaporation

from the fermented grain and they capture that,

and that it's actually the clear spirit.

It says it's distilled six times.

The more times that you distill it and run it through,

the smoother, the cleaner the end product is supposed to be.

But I do believe that there's overdistillation,

meaning that you can strip a lot of the flavors

and a lot of the characteristics that you want

can be stripped away.

All right, here we go, pour some in our glass here.

It's so funny because they talk about vodka,

it's supposed to be this flavorless, odorless thing.

It's just not true.

It's not giving off lots of flavor and all that,

but it does have a smell to it.

Smells like rubbing alcohol.

Yeah, it smells pretty medicinal.

Maybe that's why it's distilled six times.

This is a tasting glass that I like to use,

and instead of swirling like you do in wine,

this is a one way to kind of open up and it coats the glass

and then you can pick it up and smell.

It's vodka, right?

Truly odorless and tasteless.

It does give off something,

but it's nothing really of note,

this truly smells like rubbing alcohol, not in a bad way,

that's just what it smells like.

Like this is great like Bloody Mary right here.

You can rub this on your wound and then drink some.

People talk about you shouldn't pay for an expensive vodka,

but like there is a difference between

how this vodka is made and another vodka

that would be sitting next to there.

It would actually smell different.

Standing side by side,

you can pick up the differences between the two.

It's really hard for me to say if this represents value.

Does it taste of quality? Yes.

Am I gonna be mixing it with something else? Yes.

So to me it really doesn't matter.

I think it's pretty decently made and will do the trick.

All right, next up is Kirkland Signature Vodka.

This is imported from France

and this comes in at a whopping $19.99.

This is the more expensive Kirkland Signature Vodka option.

I see this has been distilled five times.

The previous vodka was distilled six times.

This is distilled from grains, it doesn't list what grains.

This is a French vodka,

like it says it's imported there, it's made there,

the grain could be from some other place, I don't know.

But you know, I think the idea

and the kind of the marketing behind Grey Goose

is that all luxury products seem to come from France.

So much so that you see a brand like this

that's spoofing off of that

or riffing off of luxury imported goods from France,

and applying it here to vodka as we've seen Grey Goose do.

And I do think that if you walked in the Costco

and your brand looks similar to this,

I think you might be tempted to buy it.

How much better is my brand than this?

Shall we? This is what makes it a luxury vodka.

No screw cap, it has a fake cork on it, there you go.

Fancy those French.

This is slightly perfumed, it smells like powdered sugar.

There's a fruit component behind it, quince or guava,

and it's distinct.

Definitely different than the vodka that we had earlier.

This tastes different.

If I'm comparing it to the previous one,

it's a lot more refined.

I wouldn't call it sweet,

but there is like this kind of roasted sugar

kind of thing going on.

The grain and the style in which it's made

does give it a more elevated taste

than the previous vodka that we tasted.

You could sip on it a little bit

and you're definitely not skittish

about putting it in a cocktail or a drink.

How can they sell this vodka at this price?

It seems like they make no money.

But what you have to understand is that Costco runs off of

what we like to call a grocery store model.

And so they're getting it on the volume.

They could make $2 per bottle from this,

but they're selling millions of bottles

of these all across the country.

You're gonna take money to the bank and not percentages.

So they're selling millions of bottles of these

at a smaller fraction which adds up.

Next up we have Kirkland Signature,

this is the blended Canadian whiskey from Canada,

and this comes in at $18.99 cents.

Canadian whiskey is made from grain,

it has to be aged at least three years

in order for it to be called Canadian whiskey,

it has to be a product of Canada.

So this is a blend of different distillants

from around Canada.

You know Canadian's all about the blended whiskey.

So when you see an age statement like this on a bottle,

it's six years, so it's been at least six years in casks.

You have to understand that oak casks are porous

and so it allows air to come through, there's evaporation.

So all of those things, the caramelized notes,

all those complexities,

all of those things happen when a spirit is in a cask,

when it's in a oak barrel.

So you look at the shape of the bottle,

I'm sure it reminds us of a certain name brand

Canadian whiskey,

which you know, I feel like is really a homage to it.

It's trying to trigger your inner thoughts to say,

hey, this is Canadian whiskey,

these are all the hallmarks from the famous brands

that you know.

Smells like whiskey.

So perfume, somewhat floral, there's a sandalwood,

it smells slightly medicinal.

Eh.

Is this Canadian whiskey? Yes.

Is it the finest Canadian whiskey?

No.

I just wish it was rounder,

like it just feels like something's missing.

When I say round, it doesn't have this mouth feel,

it doesn't like there's anything in the mid palate.

Like front I'm getting all in and bringing that in,

in the middle it's just kind of like ah,

it just kind of falls flat and there's nothing else to it.

And then you get a little bit on the finish.

At 18.99, not a bad price.

Maybe this is the stuff that you buy

and you put it in a fancy decanter

and pour like when your thirsty friends come over,

it just feels weak overall.

So this is the Kirkland Signature Blended Scotch Whiskey

coming in at $19.49 cents.

This is kind of the same bottle format, so this is a 1.75,

I guess people call it a handle,

just 'cause it has a built-in handle on it here.

This was distilled and matured in Scotland.

It is an imported product.

As you can see here in the front it says

that it's matured in American oak cask.

American oak is very prevalent in the caramelization,

in the vanilla note in something like bourbon.

And it's interesting

that the Scottish have picked up on that

to mature their scotch in.

Scotch is special for a lot of different reasons.

A lot of it is about water and using a local water source,

they're using a local grain,

that sense of terroir and like what it brings.

Scotch can really only be made in Scotland.

Yeah, there can be versions of it made somewhere else,

but the idea that all of these little things add up,

all attribute it and make scotch, scotch.

It has a name in the front, Alexander Murray and Company.

In a big box store like that, it could fill kind of cold.

You're just pushing all these products on me

and maybe to know that there is a real name behind the brand

could add a level of authenticity

that their customer is looking for.

This has given off Johnny Walker Red vibes.

I'm gonna get in here.

I think the first thing I get off of this

is what we call peat, it smells like a bandaid, iodine.

So it smells like when you open up a bandaid package.

Peat is a immature form of coal.

Peat is a desirable thing,

I think it's why I'm drawn to scotch,

but it is an acquired taste

and to me it's a beautiful thing

when I find it in scotch whiskey.

Kind of caramel taste to it,

there's a little bit of like kind of nutmeg and cinnamon

and then there's like this big block,

this structure of the scotch, it's really beautiful.

I'm fond of this taste and the way this,

'cause this reminds me of a certain place in my life,

going to college, this is where this is all I drank.

I'm sure if I knew that they had this out

I'd probably be drinking this and not the other one.

At 19.49, this is the bee's knees.

All right, so next up

is the Kirkland Signature 12-Year-Old Blended Scotch Whiskey

from Scotland.

This comes in a 1.75 liter and costs $36.49 cents.

We're double the price here.

So this has been aging in casks for 12 years

and so that's a very, a very, very long time

compared to the blended scotch whiskey,

which I think is maybe three years in casks.

Once you put spirit in a bottle, it does not age anymore.

The aging process all happens in casks,

when you're talking about spirits.

In oak casks that has crevices, it allows oxygen to come in,

extraction of compounds from the oak oils

and all those things, those all attribute to the complexity

and the nuances that you get.

Aging for 12 years, a very long time, paying for storage.

The longer that it takes for the spirit

to take it outta casks,

the longer that you don't receive a return on your money.

So that's why you're paying double for the 12-year-old.

It could even be the same scotch

that's just been aged for 12 years or so,

that's kind of spot on and par for the course.

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I get a little bit of prune, it kind of smells like it,

it has all these aromats.

A little element of peat but not as strong.

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It kind of has like this sweet wood, prune,

there's definitely some spice in the mid palate.

Finish is pretty clean.

This is a nice sipper.

At 36 bucks, in that price range, this delivers quality,

especially at 12 year,

you just can't really buy 12 year at that price.

Out of all the stuff that we tasted today,

I haven't really said that I would go out and get this,

but I would buy this.

That's nice.

All right, next up,

we have the Kirkland Signature Irish Whiskey,

this comes in at $28.99.

Irish tends to be a little bit on the lighter side

and smoother and they don't really do like the peat,

so you don't pick up any of those kind of flavors either.

To me it's just kind of light, smooth,

a fun whiskey that we all like to drink.

We're just gonna get right into this,

giving a little Jamo vibes here.

When we actually purchased this bottle,

it was laying next to a bottle of Jameson.

I think it was like 60 bucks, same size.

So you're thinking, this is like half the price.

Here, I get like a kind of like caramelized apple.

There's a sweetness, that's expressing itself

as vanilla here.

It tastes like grain,

it presents a different elegance to this particular spirit,

but that's Irish whiskey to me.

They could easily charge $40 for this bottle here.

And if you don't care about the name brand that's on it,

as far as your Irish whiskey,

I think that this is something

that you might want to gravitate to.

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All right, so next up we have Kirkland Signature,

this is Tequila Blanco, better known as Costco Amigos.

Coming in at 32.99.

Says that it's 100% agave,

and generally what that means

is that it's made it from the actual plant.

You can add different types of glucose

and different types of sugars to the distillation,

which don't make it 100% agave, 100% is what you want.

And agave is this huge kind of pineapple looking plant

that takes years for it to mature.

You think about the raw product

and how long it takes to make a fully mature agave plant,

this 100% agave does mean something,

I'm excited to get into this.

When you really think about it,

Blanco is kind of the entry level of tequila,

it is the base spirit that you get

once you distill agave and then as you start to age it,

then you pick up the different designates,

whether it be Reposado or Añejo.

So it says 92 points on here, and to be honest,

I don't really pay attention to scores or numbers

or anything like that.

For some consumers, it's a really big thing.

So I don't poo poo on them or anything like that,

I'm not impressed, it just makes me intrigued,

like now we set the standard to say that this is 92 points,

but I normally don't give a [beep].

Most tequila actually comes from an area called Jalisco.

There's several different distillants from agave,

but from that area it's called tequila.

Batch numbers, that's a sign of quality,

that they're individually batching 'em out.

But also it could mean that if there's a recall,

you can single it down to one defective batch

and pull that batch.

If you look inside of here, on the back part of there,

inside you can actually see how they printed

inside the bottle, and normally that's the lot number.

If there was something that happened,

they would narrow it down to that particular batch

or batches, and then they would recall them.

All right, we're gonna go ahead and taste this sucker.

It smells like cooked agave.

A lot of people would say, oh it smells like tequila,

but mainly I get freshly cut grass,

white pepper, citrus, apples, grass.

I'm very fond of this, I would sip this.

This tastes like tequila,

it has a lot of the hallmarks of well produced tequila.

This would be perfect as I'm enjoying it right now.

Ranch Water has kind of been my go-to summer thing.

So this and Topo Chico and lime, a margarita.

But this is definitely something

that you could sip and drink straight up for sure.

So at $33 you do the quick math,

a single bottle is somewhere around $14.

To me, that represents extreme value there.

This is comparable with one of my favorite blancos,

Don Julio.

Granted, I don't know if there's any additives

or anything added to this,

and this is not what this tasting's about.

This is just tasting whether there's quality

and value in these bottles

and there definitely is in this Tequila Blanco.

All right, next up we have Kirkland Signature,

this is Tequila Anejo.

This comes in at 29.99 and this is in a one liter bottle.

So we've come down a little bit in size

but still larger than a regular size 750 milliliter.

And this is $11 more per liter

than the last tequila that we tasted.

So earlier we're talking about Blanco,

it being like the raw spirit

that comes out of the distillation process.

And then when you get to Anejo,

which actually means age,

is aged up to three years in oak casks.

At one time this tequila looked exactly like the Blanco,

and then it goes into the aging process in the cask.

When you introduce the aging process into oak,

it's gonna take on vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg,

it's gonna have these complexities and the caramelization.

So I'm excited to taste this.

There's a complexity to it.

It's a smell of like kind of sweet wood,

kind of like applewood, nutmeg, lime, citrus oil.

This is sweet, it tastes sweet to me.

Tequila's not supposed to be sweet.

There's lots of brands out there

that have these other elements to it

and to me that's not tequila.

If you like something like Casamigos that's sweet

or something like that, then maybe this is your jam.

But for me, I want something a little bit more authentic

to the agave taste.

I mean I think you can add additives.

There's definitely wiggle room

and a way to manipulate for sure.

But when I grew up, tequila didn't taste this good.

I know I sound like a boomer, I'm not a boomer,

but there's something different about it

and it's tequila that actually tastes like bourbon, right?

Which I think for the American palate

is something that they're used to

and it takes away the bite

and some of the authenticity of tequila

and that's not where I'm at.

It's authentic to the marketplace,

but like to me I feel like that's not real.

All right, so next up we have Kirkland Signature,

this is London Dry Gin.

This comes in at 17.99.

So gin is really just vodka that's flavored with botanicals.

The calling card for gin is juniper.

It's kind of hard to explain what that smells like

but it's very distinct.

So I think that a lot of things that you pick up

is coriander, juniper,

are some of the big things that you pick up in gin.

Neutral grain.

So this could be made from any type of grain.

So you're distilling grain.

And then what makes gin, gin is the botanicals that you use,

that flavoring that makes it gin versus vodka.

So London dry gin,

I think it means that it's made with natural botanicals

and not chemicals.

So there's no artificial flavorings or anything like that.

Smells like gin, it smells,

so when you say it smells like gin,

what you're smelling, it's the coriander,

but mainly the juniper.

It also smells like it could be medicinal.

That actually tastes civilized,

it's not too crazy on the botanicals, to me,

it feels really soft and pleasant and elegant.

Looking at value here,

I think this was placed right next to Bombay Sapphire

in the store, which was double the price.

The value is there,

i think the one thing I'm waxing poetically

about the softness of it,

but like that could actually be its shortcoming.

If you don't like gin or never had gin in the past,

maybe this is a starting point for you

in that sense of how powerful it is,

it just feels slightly fainter, it's not in your face.

Still tasting it afterwards, but I like this style.

Alright, so next up we have the Kirkland Signature Cognac XO

and this comes in at 49.99.

This is a regular bottle, this is a 750 bottle,

but what we should all know is cognac is expensive.

XO is a 10 year, doesn't it?

So this has been aged at least 10 years.

It is made from grapes.

So instead of having your grain, you're using grapes here.

And how's it different from wine?

Wine, you're actually fermenting and making it

and you're not distilling it.

We're talking about France here.

Cognac is a region, so the grapes have to be grown there

and it has to be distilled and made there

in order for it to be called cognac.

This is funny because this size bottle

for a regular bottle of cognac at 49.99,

is just par for the course.

The fact that this has a 10 year age statement on it,

and it's still the same price

of what you would find in a regular one,

I think that's where the value should click in.

So normally only for me, I'd have it in a brandy sniffer,

I think it's a great way to drink it,

especially in the cooler months.

That's pretty tasty.

I think, orange zest, orange peel, there's prune, apricot,

fairly easy on the palate, it has a sophisticated taste.

It tastes polished for lack of a better term, it is smooth.

So yeah, so if I had to explain like

what does cognac taste like?

To me it's kind of a cross between whiskey and rum.

So rum, you think it's like sweet

and kind of all these warming spices

but you don't get like that stern backbone of like whiskey.

I think if you put them together and refine it

and smooth it out, you get cognac.

I don't think it's of that level of like a Hennessy XO

or Cordon Bleu XO and those things,

but this is a decent producer

and I think a fun alternative,

you guys should fight over this one.

When you live in like snowy weather,

like this is it right here.

So moving right along,

we have the Kirkland Signature Spiced Rum,

and it comes in at 13.99.

Wow, this is a big bottle for 13.99, this is a 1.75 liter.

I think every spirit brand

is trying to get to the level of cognac

when you're talking about is this a sipper?

But rums should be sipped in the same fashion as cognac.

Some rums, not all rums.

I don't know if this is one of those rums,

but we're gonna find out.

This is distilled from sugarcane,

which is prevalent in the Caribbean islands.

This says that this is bottled by Sazerac

in Louisville, Kentucky.

So the Sazerac company, we know that they make Sazerac Rye,

but they own a lot of other things as well,

that's kind of a big name.

Even though they may not have really

anything to do with it, it says that they're bottled there,

maybe just they're bringing it and bottling.

But I think for some people that could put people at ease

that a company the size of Sazerac and reputation

is involved in this project.

Smells like an egg cream.

All these kind of like rich, warm spices, nutmeg, cinnamon,

it smells like it'll be chewy.

There's gonna be like this texture to it,

like it's ice cream or something or a cake.

Smells like eggnog and maybe I'm putting too much rum

in my eggnog, but that's exactly what it reminds me of.

This is less sweet on the palette,

there is the element of sweetness

followed up and backed up by those baking spices.

This is tasty.

I don't understand why this can't be sipped

in the same fashion as cognac.

Spiced rum is used more for mixing

and when you think about rum, super aged, old rum

like XO and those types of things,

those are more your sipping rums.

All right, so next up, this is Rum XO from Guatemala.

This comes in at 24.99.

So if you look at this very cute little bottle,

this is a regular sized bottle.

I think today we've been featuring larger format.

So it's expensive.

XO here is some type of special designate.

So this rum has been aged for six years.

Six years is a very long time for a spirit

or a product to be sitting in cask.

It benefits from that time and from that time you pay for it

like a dry aged steak.

And so the idea that it's aged in old bourbon casks,

and so bourbon casks, American oak,

because of its wider grain,

'cause it imparts a lot of vanilla and dill,

these are desired qualities

when you're thinking about aging.

And so it's matured and aged in that,

and then they're putting it in something mellow,

like a cognac barrel to kind of bring on

some of that refinement

that helps kind of mellow out the stringent,

crazy tannin filled American bourbon barrels.

I think hopefully they're thinking that that can rub off,

not only making a great product,

but in the marketing and the idea behind it.

You're thinking cognac barrels,

this should be sipped in the same way as cognac.

Oh wow, okay.

Like toasted almonds,

like there's a slight nutty component to it.

Toffee, a caramel to this thing, like a sweet caramel,

salted sweet caramel.

So this is definitely a different beast than the spiced rum.

It's not a lot of those warm spices in that element,

there's like marmalade, orange marmalade,

there is a sweetness to it, but that's kind of faint.

And other than that, this is fantastic.

I don't think it's interesting

that they have two specialty rums in their lineup,

this is a serious place, right?

Like that's what I keep trying to say,

like in all of their stuff,

they're serious about the things that they buy.

Those are two different categories.

The spiced rum is treated differently

than an XO rum for sure.

And you can taste it in the glass,

so I'm not surprised by that.

That just tells me that they kind of know

what they're doing.

So we're moving right along here.

We have the Kirkland Signature,

this is the Irish Cream Liqueur.

This comes in a 1.75 and this comes in at $17.99 cents.

You typically think an Irish Cream Liqueur

is Irish whiskey mixed with some type of dairy product,

whether it's milk or cream.

There's rules in order for it to be called

Irish Cream Liqueur.

And it seems very fitting for everything else,

in wine and alcohol,

when you're talking about something international,

and something that says reached high acclaim.

People love this stuff.

I think people really enjoy it as an after dinner drink,

kind of maybe in lieu of something sweet,

they have an Irish Cream.

Nah man.

You see, this is why I don't really mess with this.

But you know, to be honest, it looks like chocolate milk

or coffee with a lot of cream.

Really smells like some type of chocolate milk.

So it's toffee, chocolate, cinnamon,

there's this overwhelming sweetness,

there's mocha, coffee that's very pleasant.

Like I can see you adding this to coffee

as a supplement to the sweetener

and to give it a little kick.

Drinking coffee with Irish Cream Liqueur in it,

not a bad way to spend the day.

17% makes it in the higher echelons of wine.

It's not overly alcoholic but tasty.

I recommend it for all of you.

Get you a little shot, get you going,

a little boost going to the train today.

So my overall thoughts today, you win some, you lose some.

We had more bang for your buck in value than we had duds.

And that's a good sign.

Costco knows what they're doing,

it's not a lot of crap that they're putting out.

And I think there's a game that people like to play

of like trying to figure out

where they source it from and all that,

I don't need to know who made it, if it tastes good,

I want to drink it and I want to be a part of it.

I converted my house, my bar at my house,

I converted it to a mini-bar

and then I went to every single Bulletproof

in my neighborhood and ordered a ridiculous amount.

I said, let me get 10 bottles

of every single airplane bottle you have.

And the dude that there's like, what the [beep],

are you talking, like, no, I see some other,

get that one too, I'll take that.

I don't even drink Ciroc Pineapple,

but if somebody comes to the house, any of you,

well, I got you.