Oh, man, I love to drink.
Go on, get me a drink. It doesn't matter what it is. I love the taste of alcohol, and all the different varieties it comes in, all the different concoctions it can be made into, and all the different flavors it can impart.
The smoky complexity of a nice scotch.
The bold, caramel sweetness of a bourbon.
The mellow, clean smoothness of an Irish whiskey.
The brash, energetic way tequila wakes you for a night of debauchery.
And the way that vodka tastes like, nothing.
Vodka.
Start talking to me about vodka, and you might notice my eyes starting to glaze over and lose focus. People love to come and zealously, wax poetic about the subject of vodka. The number of distillations, how it was filtered and how many times, the type of glacier water used, how they only use the choicest grains for their particular vodka, etc... Meh, I'm just not that interested.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love drinking vodka and when I bartended for all those years, used it extensively to create and make drinks with. It's a great empty canvas ready to be shaped and manipulated to your desire. But it's just vodka, despite what all those years of marketing has forced down our throats. It's distilled, diluted with water, and bottled (and trust me, the bottles cost more to make than what's inside). No aging for years in barrel. Nothing to add to it for complexity or flavor, unless you want the chemicals they use for that watermelon or mango taste.
Vodka is just vodka. We drink Sobieski at home, one of Poland's favorite and best selling vodka's. We sell a half gallon bottle of that, here on Sale at Swirl, for $17.99, while a fifth of Grey Goose will usually run for about $30. Twice the amount for a helluva lot less vodka. Is it worth it? I guess people think it is, G.G. is one of the best selling vodka's. Which I don't understand, especially if you're mixing it with cranberry juice or Red Bull.
I remember bartending one night, and this lady asks for an extra-extra dirty, dirty martini with the Goose. "Make it filthy," she says to me in a rusty, smoker's voice.
We used 8 oz martini glasses that we filled to the rim. That's a lot of alcohol to slurp down. I must've poured maybe an ounce of vodka and then filled the rest with olive brine, shaken and strained into the glass, and she loved it. Raved about her olive brine with a hint of vodka to her friends.
And then she says, "It's because you used Grey Goose. It's soooo good."
Wow. Could you really even taste the difference if I used another vodka?
Could you?
Do a taste test one day. Make sure you do it blindly so the marketing, or the design on the bottle, or the costs doesn't interfere with your judgement.
I'm sure the vodka purists out there are set to pounce on me the minute I leave the building. Sorry, didn't want to offend anyone, just stating that nothing is nothing.
This post got me started on my vodka rant, check it out:
Happy drinking,
James
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