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but he figured that adding another flag to their show banner would make things even sweeter,
so i came as the American from Israel : 2 flags, one guy, how about that?
Prior to the show Seppo recommended me to visit
a local liquor store which was a combination of
Hi-Times and Lucas: tons of minis at a very
reasonable price. They had a basement where they
kept all the really high-end stuff: dusty malts,
cognacs and other stuff you can only dream you’d
be able to afford (large bottles though). The wealth
in that city is like nothing else and every 16 years
old is driving a Range Rover or a Benz, so
obviously someone can afford these. Makes
Manhattan looks like Chesapeake, VA.
At the evening prior to the show I had a fine steak
at the White Rabbit, one of the fanciest place in
Moscow. The steak is not the point, the point was
a $1350 glass of 40yo Macallan I was tempted to
buy. I ended up with a $6 Heineken and saved a
lot of lawyer bills and future potential child
support bills.

48ML Japanese Makers Mark

And then came the show.
The show was an interesting combination of a
party at a club and a traditional miniature bottles
show. There was a DJ and an entertainer who
played lousy covers for American and European
songs. There were about 25-30 tables with a vast
majority of cognac and vodka. Here’s the
interesting part: you’d expect that with the
economy in Russia and with the fact that this place
is the birthplace of vodka, everything would be
relatively cheaper. It wasn’t though.
For example: Chopin set (new label): $30, Van
Gogh at $15, *** Hennessy $20 and others. There
were some reasonable ones like Kazenka vodkas
for $20-$25 (these used to go for a lot higher back The 4 Kazenka vodkas I picked
in the Lisenko-Sullivan days), xo cognacs for $15-$25,
Tchaikovsky vodka for $12 (that’s the window one with the dancing ballerina) and others.
From a pricing standpoint, it was higher than St Louis, even for the local stuff, but there was
definitely stuff people would find interesting.

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