Vodka feature

10 course dinner & fruit vodka tasting (24^th Oct)

Vodka Rules

Keep vodka in the freezer – if it freezes then your flatmates have been topping it up with water….

Drink the good stuff straight and sip

Experiment with new brands – DON’T stick to Smirnoff

Facts

(facts to highlight or scatter around article in bubbles/boxes)

Vodka - literally ‘little water’ in Russian

Base materials - wheat, barley, rye, maize, potatoes, molasses, grapes…any agricultural product that contains starch or fermentable sugar

Compared to maize, the cheapest material, the distiller needs x4 the amount of potatoes to produce the same amount of vodka.

Usually 37.5% - 42% by volume

Vodka is very quick to produce - from grain to bottling, it takes just 4 days for Absolut.

Factfile box

Base material	Character	Brands
Wheat	Spicy, grainy, anise, sweetest of grain vodkas	Absolut, Russian Standard, Grey Goose, Stolichnaya
Barley	Crisp, light, grainy, vanilla	Finlandia
Rye	Citrus, spicy, light oiliness	Wyborowa, Belvedere
Potato	Creamy, full bodied, smooth	Chopin, Chase (formally Tyrrels), Luksusow
Grapes	Crisp, anise, citrus, viney	Ciroc

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Can you remember your first alcoholic drink in a bar? For many of you, it was probably a beer.  Mine was a vodka and orange, bought at the local ‘old man’s pub’ in my village in the Highlands.  Vodka and orange, also known as a Screwdriver (but, aside from my boyfriend, who actually orders that?), became my staple drink throughout university life. 

Fast forward a few…and then a few more years and I am still drinking my fair share of vodka.  However, it’s no longer the supermarket’s cheap own brand and it now rarely sees any orange.  Having worked in the drinks industry and completed my Diploma in wines and spirits, my understanding and appreciation for vodka has grown significantly.

Although basic white spirits were being produced earlier as medicines and perfumes, the story of vodka really starts in the fifteenth century in Eastern Europe.  Whether vodka was first produced by the Russians or the Poles is a hotly contested issue, which I’m not going into now!

Vodka, literally ‘little water’ in Russian, usually starts off as grain, but the base material can be any agricultural product that has fermentable sugars or high levels of starch that can be converted into sugars.  In addition to grain (from wheat, barley, rye or sometimes maize), potatoes, molasses, even grapes, can be used.  The base material determines the quality and the character of the final product as well as the volumes that can be produced.  One of my favourites is vodka made from potatoes – smooth, full bodied, creamy, lovely to sip chilled, and my head appreciates it much more the following day.  A far cry from the sharp, rough spine-tingling 49p vodkas that we knocked back in the Student Union! One drawback of potatoes compared to maize, the cheapest base to use, the distiller needs four times the amount of potatoes to produce the same amount of vodka.

Without going into long-winded science lesson, the sugars in the base material are fermented to produce 6- 10% alcoholic liquid, akin to beer, which is then distilled a minimum of three times to produce a high strength spirit.  There are a lot of references as to how many times the spirit has been distilled.  It’s a double-edged sword; the more times that it is distilled, the purer the vodka is, but also the more character of the base material is lost, for example the creaminess of the potato.  The spirit is then blended with water, often filtered, and finally diluted with water, which results in usually 37.5% - 40% by volume.

As well as Russia and Poland, vodka is now made worldwide – across Scandinavia, USA, France, New Zealand, even the UK!  Smirnoff, produced from mixed grain, is the world’s biggest brand of vodka, however, more and more vodka brands are establishing themselves, especially those part of the premium vodka sector.  Think Ciroc, promoted by rapper P Diddy, and Belvedere, cropping up in the photos of those A-lister parties, to which we didn’t get an invite.

As well as new premium ‘posh’ vodkas, you’ll see an array of fruit and flavoured vodkas on the shelves of specialists and supermarkets.  Flavoured vodkas are not a new invention.  The very first vodkas of the fifteenth century were very harsh, hence were flavoured with spices, herbs and fruits to soften the rough edges.  Now, we have some wonderfully pure vodkas as well as an assortment of flavours – apple, cranberry, mint, honey, chocolate, more or less anything! My boyfriend even made a basil flavoured vodka (it didn’t go that well).

The better flavoured vodkas are made by extracting natural flavours and blending into the vodka whilst the easier and cheaper method involves artificial bought-in essences.  Zubrowka is one of the finest and most traditional flavoured vodkas.  The grassy, herbal, apple flavours come from bundles of dried grass (on which bison have grazed) which the spirit vapours pass through during production. (image)

My most interesting and exciting vodka experience was in Poland two weeks ago for a friend’s wedding.  The two words that I learnt pretty much sum up my recent trip - ‘tak’ (yes) and ‘na zdrowie’ (cheers).  Alongside an incredible eight courses over nine hours, we participated in a number (the exact number of which we lost count after twenty three) of toasts with straight, chilled Wyborowa.  It was on this trip that I also sampled Chopin, premium Polish potato vodka.  (photo)

Due to both its neutrality and diversity, vodka has become one of our favourite spirits, whether neat, flavoured or within cocktails.  It was the first alcoholic drink that I took a punt on, but I’m still discovering and enjoying what it has to offer. 

Vodka, anyone? Na zdrowie!

Emma Rapper
Tastourian Guru