The vodka article in GoodLife

[Vange]

http://orig.app.com/goodlife/Holiday2006/topshelf/topshelf.html

It has been officially released. Let me know what you think.

[scratchline]

Nice. But how could you leave out Buffalo Trace's Rain Vodka? Distilled from corn.

-Mike

[Vange]

I almost used it, but it's a $20 or in some places a sub $20 bottle. Not "Top Shelf" enough. Cool bottle though.

[wadewood]

I almost used it, but it's a $20 or in some places a sub $20 bottle. Not "Top Shelf" enough. Cool bottle though.

Top Shelf = Marketing and not anything to do with taste?

[MarkB]

Interesting article, but some of the best vodka I've run across (and it has also run over me, so to speak) is Austin, Texas own Tito's Vodka. A great vodka and very reasonable price.

[Vange]

I agree on Tito's. It's actually my house vodka. To be Top Shelf some marketing and hype could be involved, but many of the good vodkas in this spread were high quality stuff regardless of their price.

[BarItemsPlus1]

Nice article Evangelos!

Just wondering if you have heard of Russian Standard?

They have a premium bottling wheat vodka which has been distilled 8 times and filtered through quartz crystal...see pic

[Vange]

Imperia was on the list as well. We had some other Russian vodkas so we went with those. It was tough to just pick 9-10 vodkas! There are TONS out there.

[MarkB]

My wife just returned from 10 days in St.Petersburg and naturally I asked her to bring be back some vodka that the locals recommended (what else?). One was Lex Nemiroff, which I haven't seen in the U.S. and another is totally written in Russian so I'm sorry I can't give you some idea of the name. It's in a smaller bottle, probably what you'd get with a Big Mac (ha!). I'm working up the courage to try them once I link up with an old buddy from the second grade that can make a martini to do them justice. No-- in the second grade we weren't drinking martini's. That came much later... the 7th grade (ha!)

.

Next to Tito's the regular old Ketel One is hard to beat also IMO, but you're right. All these top shelf vodkas are very, very fine!

[Rughi]

Debowa Polska Premium...

a sliver of oak inside imparts flavor to the rye-based ingredients.

Wouldn't want to go too heavy on that oak, now.

I remember the first year I made wine I couldn't yet bring myself to spring for an oak barrel, so I threw some oak chips into the glass carboys. It gave perhaps 5% of the character of a real barrel: some vanillins, some tannins, but none of the oxygenation and evaporation that synergize within a barrel to make good red wine.

That said, I expect the sliver of oak may be a large part of the flavor, considering how...sparse...are the flavor components in a spirit that approaches GNS.

The main sensory experience I get from vodka, aside from ethanol, is the mouthfeel; is it thin, astringent, oily, viscous, etc. The notes "full bodied" and "silky, creamy" are the ones to which I can relate. Of course, how cold one drinks one's vodka also has a lot to do with those characteristics.