title_body: Is there a legitimate ~$500 vodka out there whose price isn't based on the bottle?
upvoted_answer: There are vintage bottles that will set you back that much, but they get their price tag from rarity, not quality. If you're just looking for fancy vodka, you reach diminishing returns pretty quickly. The New York Times noted Smirnoff as the best in a blind tasting, while Playboy's booze columnist had good things to say about Popov, which comes in a plastic bottle.. Even a vodka that is supposedly easier on your liver (because you know.... science and stuff) only goes for 30 dollars. 
  
  On the luxury end of the spectrum vodka tops out around 70 bucks. This includes a numbered, limited edition bottle, that uses potato vintages in the same way that wines use grape vintages, and even lists the name of the potato farmer on the label. There are some notable and pricey exceptions to that. Stolichnaya released three limited edition bottlings a few years back, each going for 3k. The big deal with these was that they used special water sources. When you go for ultra-premium vodka, that's what you get.... really expensive water.
  
  If you are still interested, Subzero in St. Louis was named one of the best vodka bars in America by both USA Today and Liquor.com. They have one of, if not the single largest vodka collection of any bar in the US. As far as I know, three of their bottles are over a hundred dollars. The first is one of the Stoli bottles mentioned above. The second is called CLIX, and is made by Buffalo Trace distillery. The name comes from the roman numeral for the number of times it's distilled....159. Which is 157 times more than necessary, in my humble opinion. The other is Ciroc Ten. Both of those come in around 300 greenbacks.
  
  Personally, whether this is a gift or you just want to try something different, here are a few things that might interest you. Napa Reserve Neutral Brandy is vodka made from wine. It used to be called vodka and not brandy, pretty sure they had to change that for regulatory reasons. Grey Goose VX is vodka mixed with a little bit of brandy. Finally Black Cow Milk Vodka. It was the first vodka made from milk and if I remember right, a couple years back I could swear I heard it was Prince Williams favored vodka. Then again, apparently a bottle of Smirnoff was seen at Kensington Palace... and if the cheap stuff is good enough for royalty, it should be good enough for anyone.