Chapter 4

VODKA

AS the story goes, in 988, the Grand Prince of Kiev (Ukraine) decided it was time for his people to be converted from their pagan ways to one of the monotheistic religions that held sway to the south. First came the Jewish rabbis.

He listened to their arguments, was impressed, but ultimately sent them away after noting that the followers of Judaism did not control any land. Next came the Muslim mullahs. Again, he was impressed, both with their intellectual arguments and the success of Islam as a political and military force. But when he was told that Islam prohibited alcohol, he was dismayed and sent them away. Finally, came the Christian priests, who informed him that not only could good Christians drink alcohol, but also that wine was required for church rituals such as communion. That was good enough for the Grand Prince, and on his command his subjects converted en masse to Christianity.

Pipes and rectification columns at Sutherland Distilling Company, Livermore, CA.

“THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A RUSSIAN AND A BOTTLE OF VODKA IS ALMOST MYSTICAL.”

Richard Owen, British scientist and drinking buddy of Charles Darwin

THE HISTORY OF VODKA

Historically, the Slavic peoples of the north and their Scandinavian neighbors took alcoholic drinks very seriously. The extreme cold temperatures of winter inhibited the shipment of wines and beers because these low-proof beverages could freeze during transit. Until the introduction of distilling into Eastern Europe in the 1400s, strong drink was made by fermenting wines, meads and beers, freezing them and then drawing off the alcoholic slush from the frozen water.

The earliest distilled spirit in Eastern Europe was made from mead (honey wine) or beer and was called perevara. The word vodka (from the Russian word voda, meaning “water”) was originally used to describe grain distillates that were used for medicinal purposes. As distilling techniques improved, vodka (wodka in Polish) gradually came to be the accepted term for beverage spirit, regardless of its origin.

Vodka production became an integral part of Russian society. Landowners operated stills on their estates and produced high-quality vodkas that were flavored with everything from acorns to horseradish to mint. The czars maintained test distilleries at their country palaces. In 1780, a scientist at one such distillery invented charcoal filtration to purify vodka.

By the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century, the Russian vodka industry was considered technologically advanced. New stills and production techniques from Western Europe were eagerly imported and utilized. State funding and control of vodka research continued. Under a 1902 law, “Moscow vodka,” a clear 40 percent ABV rye vodka without added flavorings and soft “living” (undistilled) water, was established as the benchmark for Russian vodka.

Fremont Mischief Distillery.

The Soviet Union continued government control of vodka production. All distilleries became government owned, and while the Communist Party apparatchiks continued to enjoy high-quality rye vodka, the proletariat masses had to make do with cheap spirits.

Vodka production in the current Russian Federation has returned to the pre-revolutionary pattern. High-quality brands are again being produced for the new social elite and for export, while the popularly priced brands are still being consumed, well, like voda.

In 1546, King Jan Olbracht granted the right to distill and sell spirits to every adult citizen. The Polish aristocracy, taking a cue from their Russian peers, soon lobbied to have this privilege revoked and replaced by a royal decree that reserved to them the right to make vodka.

Commercial vodka distilleries were well established by the eighteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, a thriving export trade had developed, with Polish vodkas, particularly those infused with small quantities of fruit spirit, being shipped throughout northern Europe and even into Russia.

With the fall of Communism in the late 1980s, the vodka distilleries soon returned to private ownership. Nowadays, high-quality Polish vodkas are exported throughout the world.

Home distilling was long a part of Swedish society. In 1830, there were more than 175,000 registered stills in a country of fewer than three million people. This tradition, in a much diminished and illegal form, still continues to this day. Modern Swedish vodka is produced by the Vin & Sprit state monopoly.

Putting labels over the caps of freshly filled bottles of Prezydent Vodka at Polmos Łódz in Łódz, Poland.

Today, vodka is the dominant white spirit in the United States, helped along by its versatility as a mixer and some very clever advertising campaigns. The most famous of these was the classic double-entendre tagline: “Smirnoff—It leaves you breathless.”

The majority of American craft distillers are vodka producers. They are divided between those who purchase neutral grain spirit (NGS) from a third-party supplier and then rectify it in their own facility, and a relative handful of operations that produce and distill their own wash to make vodka. This is actually a serious challenge for craft distillers with pot stills, because it is difficult to produce a high-proof neutral grain spirit without using a column still.

Ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails are becoming more popular at craft distilleries. Vodka Mule by Cutwater Spirits, San Diego, CA.

The best-known, and best-selling, vodka is Tito’s Handmade Vodka from the distillery of the same name in Austin, Texas. Despite its carefully cultivated market image as a “handmade” craft product, the base spirit is NGS (neutral grain spirit) produced, at various times, at ethanol plants and national distilleries in the Midwest. For the record, every other major domestic brand of vodka, and many of the craft brands, too, are made the same way.

Charcoal filtration used in making vodka at Colorado Pure Distilling.

Except for a few minor exceptions, vodka is not put into wooden casks or aged for any extensive period of time. It can, however, be flavored or colored with a wide variety of fruits, herbs, and spices.

In the United States, domestic vodkas are defined by U.S. government regulation as “neutral spirits, so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color.” Because American vodka is, by law, neutral in taste, there are only very subtle distinctions between brands. Many drinkers feel that the only real way of differentiating between them is by alcohol content and price.

Maine Distilleries uses locally sourced potatoes to make its Cold River Vodka.

The hybrid pot still at Heritage Company in Gig Harbor, WA, with a thumper and two columns can make vodka in one pass.

Prentis Orr, left, and Barry Young, founders of Pennsylvania Pure Distillery, stand in front of a chalkboard diagram that outlines how they make their Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka from scratch in Glenshaw, PA.

VODKA REGIONS

Poland produces and exports both grain- and potato-based vodkas. Most of the high-quality brands are produced in pot stills.

The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, along with Finland, produce primarily grain-based vodkas, mostly from wheat.

Tim Smith of Ogden’s Own Distillery hikes into Ogden Canyon to collect spring water from its source and uses it to reduce Five Wives Vodka to proof.

Zubrówka vodka by Polmos Bialystocka is flavored with buffalo grass from the Bialowieza forest in Poland. The vodka has a yellow-green tinge (not shown) from the grass infusion.

Label for Koenig’s Famous Idaho Potato Vodka, by the Koenig Distillery and Winery.

American vodkas are, by law, neutral spirits, so the distinction between nonflavored brands has traditionally been more a matter of price and perception than taste. In order to distinguish their spirits in the market, a number of craft distillers are now making vodkas that show a little more of the residual aromas and flavors of the base material. Some good examples of this are Jackson Hole Still Works Highwater Vodka (corn and oats), Caledonia Spirits Barr Hill Vodka (Honey), Harvest Spirits Core Vodka (apple), and Central Standard Spirits Wisconsin Rye Vodka.

A number of flavored vodkas are also produced both by the major distillers and by an assortment of craft distillers.

Australia produces (and consumes) vast quantities of molasses-based vodka, but few are exported.

Asia has a smattering of local vodkas, with the best coming from Japan.

Core Vodka by Harvest Spirits is distilled from apples.

Elk Rider Wheat Vodka by Heritage Distilling Company earned a Gold Medal, Best of Category, Best of Class, in the American Distilling Institute’s 10th Annual Judging of Craft Spirits, 2016.

Sagaponacka Wheat Vodka by Sagaponack Farm earned a Double Gold Medal in the American Distilling Institute’s 2018 International Judging of Craft Spirits.

THE BIGGEST-SELLING SPIRIT IN THE WORLD THAT YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF

In early 1935, during the Chinese Civil War between the Communist Red Army and Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), retreating Red Army units on what became known as the Long March, paused in the city of Maotai in the south-central province of Guizhou. The KMT Air Force had been bombing and strafing the Red Army without pause for weeks, but it suddenly stopped this assault when the troops entered the town, and did not renew the attack until the Red Army had left Maotai and moved on. In turn, the Communist forces left the town untouched. The reason for this unofficial truce was that the town of Maotai was the home the distilleries making mao tai, a type of spirit called baijiu that was held in high regard by both sides in the civil war. Politics is one thing, but the possible loss, to both Communists and Nationalists, of what most people in China agreed was the country’s finest spirit, was inconceivable and unacceptable.

Kweichow Moutai, is a variety of baiju from China.

Mao tai is probably the best known (or more probably the only known) Chinese spirit outside of China. But it is by no means the only variety of baijiu, which is made pretty much everywhere in China where grain is grown. In simple terms, mao tai is to baijiu in China what Cognac is to brandy in France: the most famous type of a wide range of spirits. Baijiu, which literally means “white alcohol” or liquor, is a distilled spirit made primarily from sorghum or wheat mash, although virtually every other sort of cultivated grain including millet, barley, corn, and even rice can also be utilized.

Alcohol production in what is now China dates back far into Neolithic times (at least 7000 BC), with a variety of simple beers and fruit wines being produced. But unlike the ancient Middle East and Europe, where low-alcohol fermented grain beverages and wines were often a substitute for polluted water, the Chinese also had tea, made using boiled water that was safe to drink. This alternative source of a safe, daily beverage allowed the governments of the early kingdoms, and later the national dynasties, to control and tax alcohol products. Alcoholic beverages, if not quite a luxury, were at least not a necessity for healthy living.

VINN Baiju is made from a qu fermentation in Wilsonville, OR, by an ethnic Chinese family, whose patriarch fled Vietnam with the “boat people” following the fall of South Vietnam in the late 1970s. The VINN Distillery also makes vodka and rice whiskey.

Fermenting grain beverages usually first requires a process called mashing, by which the starch molecules in crushed grain are converted using enzymes into simple sugars that yeast can feed on to create alcohol and carbon dioxide. In the Middle East and Europe, a process called malting, in which grain (usually barley) was moistened, allowed to partially sprout, which activated natural enzymes in the kernel and then dried to stop the growth of the seed, was used to mash raw grain prior to fermentation.

In China, starting around AD 200, Chinese winemakers (both fermented grain and fruit beverages were collectively known as “wine”) created their own distinctive combination mashing and fermentation process using an invention called qu (pronounced like chew). Qu is basically a clump of mashed grains that is stored in a warm, moist, controlled environment for a period of time, which encourages the growth of yeasts and various types of bacteria. The finished qu is then pressed into a brick-shaped mass, and stored until use. Crumbled qu is then added to a grain mash to convert the starches into sugars and also ferment the mash to create alcohol. Qu from each producer is unique, drawing on the local microflora and fauna from the local terroir to create a more sophisticated and complex fermented drink known in the heart of China as huangjiu. In its various versions, huangjiu, which has a look and taste broadly similar to dry sherry, was the drink of choice for the ruling class for the next thousand years, and is still produced to this day. What is frequently translated as “rice wine” on menus in China is usually a type of huangjiu.

The art of distilling was introduced to China from the Islamic world during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century. The first distilled spirits were probably fruit brandies. But distilling fermenting grain mashes soon followed, and baijiu was born. It was less expensive to make and had a higher alcohol content than the aristocratic huangjiu, and thus quickly became popular throughout the empire. Virtually every town and city had its own baijiu distilleries, most of them small and catering to the local market in a manner similar to medieval alehouses in Europe.

Modern baijiu production dates from the turn of the 20th century. As the creaky Qing Dynasty staggered toward its final collapse in 1912, some of the larger baijiu distillers began looking at distilling techniques abroad. But the political turmoil and foreign invasions during the first half of the century limited the technical advancement, if not necessarily the growth of the baijiu distilling industry. The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and its fetish-like obsession with industrial modernization, did slowly reach into the baijiu distilling industry. Modern distilleries were built, particularly in the post-Mao era, as private enterprises were encouraged by the new market-oriented regime. By the turn of the 21st century, it has been estimated that there were over 25,000 baijiu distilleries in operation. That number has diminished somewhat in recent years. But there are still a lot of baijiu distilleries in China.

But baijiu is not categorized by age, but rather aroma. The four primary categories are strong aroma, sauce aroma, light arom, and rice aroma. Under these general headings there are many, many subcategories, including, phoenix aroma, sesame aroma, medicine aroma, and chi aroma (named after a type of bean curd sauce), to name but a few.

A series of tubs contain qu fermentations used in the making of baiju at the VINN Distillery, in Wilsonville, OR.