By
George Brozowski
You
know, honestly, the story of Vodka should be straightforward
and simple but that is just not turning out to be the case
at all. After all it is by definition an odorless, colorless
liquid with no taste. How complicated can that be? Hell, you
can make it out of any old grain, potatoes, fruit, bread or
anything else with a bit of sugar in it and then just distill
it down and voila, vodka. What else can there be to say about
this liquid? Plenty it turns out.
As
uncomplicated as this product is you would think a handful
of distillers would whip up astronomical amounts of this elixir
and supply the world and that would be that, but NO! There
are at least 7,000 brands of vodka on the planet and they
all vary anywhere from slightly to overwhelmingly from the
base description of vodka. Having personally test driven at
least 100 of those thousands of brands I can tell you from
experience that they are all over the place in taste and price.
They
vary from horrible gut wrenching inferno igniting cheap garbage
to over-priced elixir of the Gods and everything in between.
The bottom of the heap can cost just a buck or two while the
over the top Russian Russo-Baltique Vodka costs $1.3 million
dollars and yes that's per bottle.
Vodka
isn't aged so that facet of it does not affect price at all.
The value of Vodka comes from the starting grain or vegetable,
the fermentation process, the distillation process and any
filtration that follows period. The rest of the cost comes
from marketing and other gimmicks like expensive bottles and
gem stones. In the case of that Russian Vodka there's a lot
of gold and a free SUV involved among other things.
Now
this is where I have to admit that I learned about a new category
of Vodka. Well, it may not be new as in being recent but it
is new to me as in knowledge. I always thought there were
4 categories of Vodka: firewater, premium, super premium and
affordable super premium. It turns out there's an affordable
premium category as well. I told you this wouldn't be simple
or straightforward! The super premiums start at $30.00 per
750 ML bottle and go up, way up although price is not necessarily
an indication of quality. The affordable super premiums hover
around $20.00 and are every bit as good as the super premiums.
The
premiums come in around $15.00 and the affordable premiums
are about $10.00. The cheap stuff will hurt you and is essentially
geared toward that very particular demographic of folks who
enjoy living outdoors, wearing the same clothes daily, bathing
sporadically, speaking erratically and drinking from a bottle
in a bag while sitting curbside.
So
the other day this big blue plastic bottle of Vodka comes
into my possession. As I do with every bottle of hooch that
comes to me I immediately hunt down their Internet site and
see what they're about. Well lo and behold they're about $10.00
per 750 ML bottle. The price sure is nice, can't wait to see
if the Vodka is nice as well. This Vodka is made in Kentucky
in the heart of bourbon country at the Buffalo Trace Distillery
from American corn rather than grain and derives its name
from the fact that it is distilled seven times, four times
in column stills and three times in pot stills. And as I'm
sure you know the more times you distill it the purer and
cleaner it becomes.
It
is clean and transparent in the glass as it looks to be a
pale blue in the blue bottle, DUH. The nose has a bit of ethanol
and a touch of corn in the base note but is otherwise devoid
of any odors or aromas. Straight up It is light bodied, not
oily, spicy in the mouth at first quickly dissipating to light
pepper then leaving a transitory trivial tingle that feels
as amusing as it is to say. It's got a bit of very fine sandpaper
in the finish rather than any kind of harshness and that quickly
and painlessly disappears leaving just warmth. If you're going
to drink this Vodka neat then make sure it is ice cold as
that makes it just that much more docile. I enjoy my martinis
without much ado and no Vermouth and this actually makes a
decent martini but I prefer a bit more mouth feel in the vodka
I use for martinis. At its price point and taste profile this
is the perfect Vodka for mixed drinks of any kind. It actually
puts up a pretty good stand against super premiums costing
three times as much. You'd have to be crazy to use more expensive
Vodka in mixed drinks and you wouldn't dare use less expensive
Vodka in mixed drinks.
I
can see why this Vodka has won 2 Gold Medals at the San Francisco
World Spirits competition. By the way, if you ever get a chance
you really must attend this event in my former home town.
It is by far one of the best, most all inclusive competitions
in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
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