you can pay a lot for some of the bottles on the very top shelf in the liquor store, but real "top shelf" liquor is NOT that expensive... and I can tell you with first hand knowledge that the "special" top dollar stuff is very seldom any better than the popular brand.... it just tastes different, and its not always what some of us know as a good taste.
a marketing scheme for a bad batch of liquor, wine or beer, is to place the "off" tasting stuff in a "limited edition" bottle, mark it as "special" and put a very high price on it and let the public dispose of it in the same manner they do the common stuff... a bad batch can be caused by the fermenting/distilling process, or more commonly, the blending process. then when it doesn't measure up in the taste test and it cant be sold as one of the well known "flavors" by the manufacture, it gets put into those special bottles.
why do you suppose some of the alcohols one can buy costs so unreasonably much when it doesnt cost any more to make an excellent product than it does to make a good product?.... the taste of anything is always a matter of personal preference, but when a batch goes bad, this is the surest and best way of getting rid of it without taking a loss by dumping it...
when one pays over about $60 for a bottle of liquor, they are beginning to buy status rather than just a good quality drink, and when one pays over about $100 a bottle, it starts becoming a bottle that looks much better than the contents will taste, and so should just set on the shelf to look at.