Premium & Superpremium Vodka: The Topic

[Friend of the Farmer]

Whenever in New York I pick up a bottle of one of the Vermont Spirits vodkas. One is distilled from maple syrup and another from milk sugar. If drinking straight, its hard to go back to the grain stuff after enjoying these. They are just delicious.

If mixing and paying for it, I'll stick with the Zyr, Hanger One or Luksoska. Of course economically, the distributors seem to deliver the freebies on a steady basis. I was recently at a bar in a resort town that has over half it's vodka selection comped on a steady basis. And there's the boomerang on those marketing dollar products.

[eje]

All very interesting, I didn't know that one pass through a column still wouldn't make it 100% pure.

[...]

←

FWIW, 100% Ethyl Alcohol is a bit difficult to make. Ethyl Alcohol is very hygroscopic, (attractive to water,) and it is quite difficult to get it to let go of the last bit of water. You won't find any spirits maker getting 100% Ethyl Alcohol, only chemical supply companies.

edit - add def of hygroscopic.

Edited December 15, 2006 by eje (log)

[slkinsey]

Right. I believe that the max you can hope for out of a still would be an azeotropic solution of 96% alcohol and 4% water.

[thirtyoneknots]

Right.  I believe that the max you can hope for out of a still would be an azeotropic solution of 96% alcohol and 4% water.

←

Yeah I actually said 96% in my initial post, I didn't mean literally 100% pure alcohol, but more of a metaphorical 100% of what is attainable. Should have been more specific.

[Shalmanese]

An Interesting NYT article on super-premium vodkas.

“Bottle service is prestigious,” said Quinn Bradley, 25, another customer at Y Bar. “I am not a vodka connoisseur, but a higher price usually means it’s better, right?”

[KatieLoeb]

and filtration through the Shroud of Turin...

I can see the tasting notes now:

"insouciant hints of moldy cloth with a peppery finish"

[freshherbs]

does anyone on this thread have an appetite for vodka with character? that is, not a totally tasteless vodka, but one with some subtle flavor (whiskey or rye) notes.

this seems to be anathema to everything all of the current superpremium vodkas are about--they are all about "smoothness" and nothing else.

curious as to people's thoughts...i can provide more info on process and ingredients if necessary

(full disclosure: i work for a spirits company)

thanks

[slkinsey]

Hi freshherbs.

I'm a little curious as to a) why one might want a vodka with subtle whiskey notes instead of whiskey (or, perhaps, do-it-yourself vodka with 2% rye mixed in), and b) how those notes might find their way into the vodka.

[Brad Ballinger]

does anyone on this thread have an appetite for vodka with character?  that is, not a totally tasteless vodka, but one with some subtle flavor (whiskey or rye) notes.(

←

Shaker's makes a rye vodka that you may find has what you're asking about.

[freshherbs]

Hi freshherbs.

I'm a little curious as to a) why one might want a vodka with subtle whiskey notes instead of whiskey (or, perhaps, do-it-yourself vodka with 2% rye mixed in), and b) how those notes might find their way into the vodka.

←

the thought behind why someone might want subtle notes of flavor is to begin to introduce more flavor/backbone/character to vodka. to introduce a new level of discernment...where you can taste what is actually there, not what isn't there. but, of course, it would still have to be vodka...i believe *most* people (perhaps not eg'ers) will always revert to vodka but may be getting bored with its lack of character

perhaps "whiskey notes" is not the best description. right now i am calling it "rounded, lasting smoothness" but that is ringing awful marketey...

as to question b) --

i can't really disclose everything but a lot of the flavor comes from an traditional copper pot still that imparts flavor character

thanks for your thoughts on this...i appreciate any feedback

[eje]

It is kind of an interesting question.

Where does whisk(e)y begin and vodka end?

Part of it is just the aging in barrels and part of it is the proof to which it is distilled.

There are also rules as to the composition of mash for whiskies. As far as I know, there are currently none for vodka (though there is talk of regulating this in the EU.)

I'm not under the impression that unaged whiskey is particularly nice.

What would the product taste like, if you took a strategy like some white rum makers.

Aged for a few years, then filtered to remove color? Bland whiskey? Flavorful vodka?

[thirtyoneknots]

I have read that 19th century vodka was much more as described here as oppsoed to the pure ethanol + water that we know today. It would not necessarily have been distilled to such a high proof and would have a lot in common with whiskey, except just filtered instead of barrel-aged. I believe Mr. Wondrich may have more to say about that, pretty sure he's where I heard of this.

-Andy

[Bricktop]

I just added a bottle of Vermont Gold, distilled from Maple sap. I figured it would be fun because heck, tis the season, and I have a friend who is gluten intolerant and I was looking for something other than another potato vodka. A small taste yesterday told me there was something else in there, but whatever it was would get blown away in a cocktail.

Also, it has an idiotic wax-dip seal that makes opening it a bitch. For future reference, it's a stopper like a sherry bottle, so cut through the wax near the top, not as I did thinking it was a screwcap.

[Splificator]

I have read that 19th century vodka was much more as described here as oppsoed to the pure ethanol + water that we know today. It would not necessarily have been distilled to such a high proof and would have a lot in common with whiskey, except just filtered instead of barrel-aged. I believe Mr. Wondrich may have more to say about that, pretty sure he's where I heard of this.

-Andy

←

I don't think there is all that much more to say about this. From what I can tell, until the very end of the nineteenth century, when the Russian government stepped in and subsidized a lot of techological improvement in vodka-making, the distillate would have been richer but less clean than what came later; until the switch to wheat began in the 1870s, rye was the dominant grain, but small amounts of buckwheat, oats, wheat, and barley were used in the mash. Nonetheless, the use of heavy charcoal filtration would have meant that the spirit was still relatively neutral in flavor, but it would have retained a nice, fat texture.

[slkinsey]

I wonder if the current practice of adding back in things like sugars and glycerin are an attempt to get some of that fat texture back.

[thirtyoneknots]

Hm apparently my initial reply didn't go through, but I was going to ask along the same lines: Is there anything on the market today that could be considered close to the "Tsar" style of vodka?

[freshherbs]

I wonder if the current practice of adding back in things like sugars and glycerin are an attempt to get some of that fat texture back.

←

hmmm, you gotta believe that it is first and foremost about making it "smooth", aka sweet. although products like grey goose do have a higher viscosity, oilier mouthfeel i doubt that they made it that way to be more like traditional russian vodka

[freshherbs]

Hm apparently my initial reply didn't go through, but I was going to ask along the same lines: Is there anything on the market today that could be considered close to the "Tsar" style of vodka?

←

what do you consider the "tsar" style?

[thirtyoneknots]

Hm apparently my initial reply didn't go through, but I was going to ask along the same lines: Is there anything on the market today that could be considered close to the "Tsar" style of vodka?

←

what do you consider the "tsar" style?

←

Sorry, just the 19th century style described by Mr. Wondrich. Most of the vodka in my house is used to make my syrups shelf-stable, so my interest here is mostly academic. Just an idle curiosity, really.

[Splificator]

Hm apparently my initial reply didn't go through, but I was going to ask along the same lines: Is there anything on the market today that could be considered close to the "Tsar" style of vodka?

←

Hmmm. Allow me to quote from William Pokhlebkin's excellent A History of Vodka (New York: Verso, 1992):

Until the 1870s, . . . Russian distilling was characterized by two main rules: that it should proceed as slowly as possible, and that not more than 45 per cent of the volume of wort should be distilled off. These rules were applied not only to the first distillation, . . . but also to subsequent distillations. These practices naturally led to significant losses of raw materials and intermediate products [this would be especially true in the second distillation--DW], and were possible only under the non-commodity, non-market conditions of the Russian serf-holding economy. . . ; the vodka-producing landowner took no heed of costs or losses as long as a high-quality product was obtained.

Pokhlebkin goes on to give some figures as an example, which show that initilally a good deal less than 45 percent of the wort was drawn off (which makes me think there may have been some problems witht he translation of the above).

Start with: "1200 litres of mash, containing 340 litres of grain and rye malt and 12 litres of beer yeast."

Draw off: 3.5 buckets, or 42 litres, of "simple wine."

Redistill this, with the "then obligatory addition of about a bucket [12 litres] of milk."

Draw off: "15 litres of good, pure grain spirit."

Add: "the traditional third part of water"

Final yield: "20-litres of top-quality vodka."

So. Rye, with "small but vital quantities of barley, buckwheat, oat flakes, wheat bran and cracked wheat," with rye malt and yeast to start fermentation, made with soft, untreated (and clean) river-water, distilled with a very strict cut, redistilled with milk with another strict cut, diluted with that same river water and filtered through beech charcoal (the most expensive and the best).

That's your Tsar-style vodka.

[slkinsey]

Interesting stuff, Dave. What would have been the primary benefit of only distilling off <45% of the wort? Was this simply a horribly inefficient way of obtaining a "cleaner" end product using fairly primitive distilling technology?

[thirtyoneknots]

Very fascinating, you never disappoint.

So I guess maybe short of going to Russia for some moonshine this type is extinct, having evolved into grey goose and whatnot.

[Splificator]

Interesting stuff, Dave.  What would have been the primary benefit of only distilling off <45% of the wort?  Was this simply a horribly inefficient way of obtaining a "cleaner" end product using fairly primitive distilling technology?

←

Precisely. Going by the figures, they were evidently making a very, very conservative cut--letting the heads, the first, funky and semi-toxic stuff come off the still and also a good amount of the heart before drawing off what they wanted, and then they'd take very little and leave the rest of the heart in with the feints. In other words, they were letting a lot of good alcohol go unused.

And, 31kt, extinct is my guess, too. If I had a large still I'd be tempted to give it a try, particularly with the milk and the eccentric small grains.

Edited because "milk" is not the same as "mild"

Edited December 22, 2006 by Splificator (log)

[freshherbs]

And, 31kt, extinct is my guess, too. If I had a large still I'd be tempted to give it a try, particularly with the milk and the eccentric small grains.

←

this is really interesting stuff.

splificator, what would you expect the resulting liquid to taste like? how would it be different than anything out there today?

[thirtyoneknots]

I was thinking about this yesterday and then I realised that we do have a product available for those who like vodka with a little whiskey taste -- Canadian whiskey ;-)

-Andy