As you’re all aware by now, Sam Adams Utopias is on its way to Toronto. It’s going to be $115 per bottle. In order to get a bottle, you have to enter a lottery held by the vintages section of the LCBO! That’s some fancy stuff. There are only 70 bottles, and you’re probably not going to get one.The truth is that I’m probably not going to get one either, but I’m ok with that since I’ve tried it before. At Mondial this year in Montreal, it was something like seven dollars an ounce.
It’s a little like bungee jumping: preposterous, expensive and the kind of thing you need to try once in order to be able to say that you did.
That said, you’re probably not going to get try it. I have come up with a way to help you feel better about that. I present to you the St.John’s Wort Expensive Liquids Equivalence Chart. The SJWELEC is the absolute cutting edge in liquid value comparison and will present you with interesting alternatives to investing $115 in a bottle Sam Adams Utopia.
| Kind of Liquid | Cost /ml | Difficulty to Procure |
| Green Tea | Free with sushi | Sometimes difficult to get a refill if the restaurant is busy. |
| Krusty Partially Gelatinated Non-Dairy Gum-Based Beverages | n/a | Only available in Springfield.
Suggested Pairing: Krusty Burger with cheese. |
| Gasoline | $0.001124 | More difficult for cliched movie teenagers. |
| 2% Milk | $0.002595 | Are you kidding? It’s freakin’ milk! |
| Nitrogen | $0.003000 | You’ll also have to buy a Thermos. |
| Fiji Natural Water | $0.003000 | Harder than just turning on the faucet, Mr. fancypants. |
| Starbucks Christmas Blend | $0.004000 | Only available November through January |
| Briess Malt Extract | $0.009000 | Aside from finding a brewer`s supply store, not so bad. |
| Brass Monkey (That Funky Monkey) | $0.010000 | Only available in Connecticut, apparently. |
| MacAllan Cask Strength | $0.133000 | Not hard to get. Just expensive. |
| Sam Adams Utopias | $0.153330 | 1.Wait until January 6th
2. Enter a lottery officiated by LCBO employees, 3. Win golden ticket like Charlie Bucket 4. Pay $115.00 for a bottle. |
| Love Potion No.9 | $0.510000 | Only available down at 34th and Vine. |
| Chanel No. 5 | $0.890000 | Pretty easy to find, but you’re going to smell
like you should be wearing a pantsuit. |
| Chateau Lafitte 1787 | $213.330000 | Extraordinarily difficult. Don’t even bother. |
According to my calculations, for the price of a Sam Adams Utopia you can:
1. Buy 44 litres of milk and just enough liquid nitrogen to make an attempt at the Guinness record for world’s largest, blandest popsicle.
2. Buy a single half milliliter of Chateau Lafitte 1787 and party with Madame Guillotine.
3. Afford enough gas to be able to drive a 2010 Toyota Camry to Cooperstown, New York (533 km, approx ~$46), Tour the Baseball Hall of Fame ($19.50), Visit the Ommegang brewery for some free samples of beers that are probably better than the Sam Adams Utopias at no charge and then drive back to Toronto (another 46 bucks.)
4. Buy a bunch of bottles of Fiji water for people who like that stuff and then sit around lecturing them on how they are suckers for not just buying a Brita filter while getting progressively more incoherent because you are swigging from a bottle of excellent MacAllan single malt.
5. Get your mom a bottle of her favorite perfume for Christmas and use the rest of the money to buy some sushi so that you can drink a lot of green tea.
6. Pay Matt Groening to sketch you enjoying a Krusty Partially Gelatinated Non-Dairy Gum-Based Beverage.
7. Buy 49 Venti Starbucks Christmas Blend Coffees, use the approximate 20000mg of caffeine to vibrate through the walls of the LCBO warehouse and just steal a bottle of Utopias.
8. Buy 21.5 litres of Aunt Jemima’s Butter Flavoured Syrup and have a very, very strange bath.
Feel free to comment with any suggestions that you may come up with to help the SJWELEC educate the population at large about opportunity cost.
All good stuff. Last thought’s the one that sticks, though. Here’s a bit with a strange bath of its own: http://handsomedonkey.com/videos/le-montage/
Great!
I’m still ordering one.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m putting my name into the lottery as well. That’s either going to make a tasting group or some private collector very happy. It’s not as though you can’t recoup a third of the cost putting the bottle on ebay.
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