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you are here: WineDater Drinks Cabinet 6
Thursday 28 August  

 

What makes a premium vodka, premium?
 
Heritage
The debate continues to rage as to whether the first vodka was made in Russia or Poland but the first written evidence of such a product hands the prize to Poland in 1405a.d. (in the Sanomierz Court Registry if you must know!). Why a high strength, neutral spirit was sought after is a little hazy, possibly for some obvious reasons, but the high alcohol would have prevented it freezing in the harsh climate of Eastern Europe. It would also have allowed for the easier extraction of flavour as it was usual to flavour afterwards when used for the medicines and perfumes it was initially produced for (nice!).
 
By the 17th century top-end producers in these two countries were triple-distilling their vodkas, charcoal filtering and flavouring – all the stuff we still see today – and they started to be held in high regard across Europe. Production spread into other countries, in particular Scandinavian, and by the mid-18th century Sweden alone had around 180,000 stills.  In the 1870s Sweden’s Lars Olsson Smith created Absolut – arguably the first of the big brands, although it wouldn’t become so for another 100 years or so!
 
Smirnoff (nee Smirnov) started production in 1861 but successive failures, due at least in part to its expulsion from Russia by the Bolsheviks (you’ve seen the ad), meant it was three owners later in the 1950s until this brand started to flower in the US, since becoming the biggest selling global spirits brand – ahem, just shy of 300 million bottles a year.
 
So, maybe ‘premium’ refers to this debate about heritage?
 
Production
There are a number of existing laws around vodka production such as minimum strength of the distilled spirit, minimum strength of the bottled spirit and ‘neutral’ flavour – they differ from market to market and quite frankly aren’t of consequence to this discussion (erm, except the last one – see below!).
 
However the methods of production; column still v pot still, number of times distilled and methods of filtration, maybe – at least so the vodka producers tell us.
 
Column still (Smirnoff Red) is typically associated with mass-production whereas pot still, as its name suggests, with small-batch (Ketel One) - think of hypermarkets v off-licence.
 
Equally, surely the effort required to distil several times (Zyr) must be more ‘premium’ than distilling less (Xellent). Some do say,” distilling right the first time is superior to mulit-distillation,” but they are generally ignored!
 
Just as something filtered through something as specific as Russian Silver Birch charcoal must be better than any old charcoal. And what about something filtered through diamonds (Diaka)?!
 
So, does premium refer to production methods?
 
Ingredients
Vodka, as with most drinks, started the various guises of its life by the use of whatever ingredients were local to its production. So, typically Polish vodkas will be made with potatoes (Luksusowa) or rye (Wyborowa), Russian with wheat (Russian Standard) and Scandinavian with barley (Finlandia). 
 
But vodka can be made with any fermentable material from onions to maize to a bi-product of oil production! All that’s needed is something high in starch and low in protein which when cooked will produce the sugars to be fermented.
 
We’re starting to see a lot more of a grape based vodka (Ciroc) in the style bars around the world and it’s in part reaction to this and others that the more established vodka producers are strenuously fighting a legal battle to create a definition of vodka by base material. It looks likely that vodkas produced from material other than ‘traditional’ materials will soon have to label themselves differently.
 
Is it the base ingredient that’s premium?
 
So, what makes premium vodka, premium?
There’s an argument put forward by most vodka producers that one, two or all three of the above factors make a premium vodka – invariably the factors on which they sell their product!
 
There is no doubt there is an argument for all three and, indeed other factors, and that there are some bad and some fantastic examples of vodkas. There are some that are better neat (Jean-Marc XO) and some better as mixers (Grey Goose), even some better as mixers with only certain things (Zybrowka and apple (known as Tatanka) marvellous, but with orange awful!).
 
What this cynical author would say though is that cutting edge design of bottles (Diva have a bottle cut from and decorated with precious stones, mmm - £500k), £millions on advertising (please, the Smirnoff ‘film’ ads are stunning but are not cheap), pricing high for kudos (in Annabel’s a bottle of Dovgan Admiral goes for £*!@~!) and sheer brand positioning is what really makes a premium vodka, premium!
 
Comment on this at info@WineDater.co.uk otherwise, until next time we reach into the Drinks Cabinet…yours, WineDater
 
 
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