Vodka
The drink that is explicitly meant to have no flavor, and thus found its way into half of all cocktails. What vodka is, what it is made from, and which glass goes with it.
The best-known vodka brands
Three brands from three corners of the shelf: Swedish grain, English mass production, and French grapes.
Absolut
From Åhus in southern Sweden, made from winter wheat and water from a single source. The round apothecary bottle is almost as famous as its contents.
About Absolut →Smirnoff
The world's best-selling vodka, with Russian roots and an English address. Triple-distilled and filtered ten times.
About Smirnoff →Cîroc
Not grain but white grapes from Gaillac and Cognac. This makes it noticeably fruitier and smoother than the rest.
About Cîroc →Grey Goose, Żubrówka, Puschkin, Esbjærg, and Trojka are also featured on glazen.nl.
Every vodka listed by brand
10 brands and 34 flavors, each with its own page about taste, cocktails, and the right glass.
As neutral as possible, and that is harder than it sounds
Vodka is a distilled spirit that is meant to taste as neutral as possible. That is the whole premise: while whisky and gin rely on their own character, vodka is made to bring little flavor of its own. The base ingredient is distilled several times and then filtered, often over charcoal, until little remains apart from alcohol and water. The legal minimum in the EU is 37.5%.
Neutral does not mean tasteless, and that is precisely where the difference between brands lies. The base ingredient remains noticeable: grain vodka is clean and slightly peppery, potato vodka fuller and creamier, and grape vodka fruitier and softer. The water also matters, as does the degree of filtration. Put two vodkas neat and ice-cold side by side and the difference is definitely there; drown them in cola and it disappears.
In brief
Four bottles, four ingredients
The percentage varies little. What does vary is where the alcohol comes from.
Grain vodka
The most common type: distilled from wheat or rye. Clean and slightly peppery, with a smooth body. Absolut is the best-known example.
At the minimum
Bottled at the legal minimum, triple-distilled and filtered ten times. The world's most widely poured vodka.
Grape vodka
Made not from grain but from white grapes, which gives it a noticeably fruitier and softer result. An outlier on the shelf.
Flavored
Vodka with added flavor: lemon, raspberry, vanilla or bison grass. Legally still vodka, but intended not to be neutral.
If you are mixing, a 37.5% vodka is fine. If you drink it neat and ice-cold, you can definitely taste the difference.
Clean, with a bite you only taste when drinking it neat
Virtually nothing
A good vodka smells like very little: some alcohol, and in grain vodka a faint note of barley or rye. If you smell more, that is usually not a compliment.
Soft with a peppery bite
Smooth and slightly oily, with a peppery tingle at the back. Potato vodka is fuller and creamier here, while grape vodka is fruitier.
Short and clean
Short, clean and warm. The better it is filtered, the less it burns; that is where most of the price difference on this shelf lies.
Flavor profile of a neutral grain vodka. Grape vodka scores higher on fruitiness; flavored vodka scores much higher on sweetness and fruitiness.
Three ways to drink vodka
Vodka should be ice-cold when drunk neat; in a cocktail, it should be shaken as cold as possible. Warm vodka is a missed opportunity in both cases.
Ice-cold from the freezer
3 cl in a small glass, straight from the freezer. Vodka does not freeze and becomes syrupy, which softens the bite while bringing out the body. In Poland and Russia, it is served with food, not a mixer.
Glass: shot glass →In a Moscow Mule
5 cl vodka with 1.5 cl lime juice in a copper mug full of ice, topped up with ginger beer. The ginger does the work and the vodka keeps it dry; that is exactly why vodka works so well here.
Moscow Mule recipe →In an Espresso Martini
5 cl vodka, 3 cl fresh espresso, 2 cl coffee liqueur and half a cl of sugar syrup, shaken hard with ice. Shaking hard is no detail here: that is where the foam layer comes from.
Espresso Martini recipe →The best-known vodka cocktails
Because vodka brings little flavor of its own, it provides the base in which the other ingredients have room to shine.
Moscow Mule
Vodka, lime and ginger beer in a copper mug. Fresh and spicy at the same time.
Espresso Martini
Vodka, espresso and coffee liqueur, shaken hard. The foam layer is part of it.
Cosmopolitan
Vodka, triple sec, cranberry and lime. Pink, tart and approachable.
Bloody Mary
Vodka with tomato juice, lemon, pepper and Tabasco. The only savory classic.The right glass for vodka
A small glass that can go in the freezer for drinking vodka neat, and a long drink or cocktail glass for everything else. These are the glasses we recommend ourselves.
Everything you still wanted to know about vodka
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