Similarly I'm for the flavor, so the old flavorless, hard crack standard for Vodka never interested me; no point in taste-testing watered down Everclear! My water is fine, no point buying water already added to Everclear. Nowadays, the TTB's tolerance of low peak ABV artisanal vodka makes comparison tasting plausible. (Though I still as a traditionalist object to a single category having both watery flavorless Ethanol and white spirit from non-grains that has terroir and suggestions of the non-grain source.) One of my spies brought me a sample of one such, I think it was Rider Vodka, from Union Horse D'y, on the KS side of KC. If I think of it as a Pisco or Blanche Brandy, it's interesting. My friends had imported a French Vodka made from geographically protected Alcmaria fingerling potatoes that was amusing, Rétha la Blanche, not sure if it's still available or not.
In my Vodka Cocktails class we tasted vodkas side-by-side, and when tasting on their own you definitely can taste some differences between grain and non-grain, and even different kinds of grains. And of course you also taste the difference from the allowed additives. Most of those subtle flavor differences pretty much disappear when you mix them with any strongly flavored ingredient though, which is why it doesn't matter that much which one you use in most cocktails. Tasting a potato and grain vodka made from the same still was really interesting. I didn't like the grain one at all, although I don't know if I said that on the radio at the time or was more diplomatic! www.michiganpublic.org/arts-culture/2021-07-02/cheers-michigan-potato-vodka-in-a-hawaiian-named-drink
This was a surprisingly well made video and I thank you for your effort! I learned something.
thanks so much!
Similarly I'm for the flavor, so the old flavorless, hard crack standard for Vodka never interested me; no point in taste-testing watered down Everclear! My water is fine, no point buying water already added to Everclear.
Nowadays, the TTB's tolerance of low peak ABV artisanal vodka makes comparison tasting plausible.
(Though I still as a traditionalist object to a single category having both watery flavorless Ethanol and white spirit from non-grains that has terroir and suggestions of the non-grain source.)
One of my spies brought me a sample of one such, I think it was Rider Vodka, from Union Horse D'y, on the KS side of KC. If I think of it as a Pisco or Blanche Brandy, it's interesting.
My friends had imported a French Vodka made from geographically protected Alcmaria fingerling potatoes that was amusing, Rétha la Blanche, not sure if it's still available or not.
In my Vodka Cocktails class we tasted vodkas side-by-side, and when tasting on their own you definitely can taste some differences between grain and non-grain, and even different kinds of grains. And of course you also taste the difference from the allowed additives. Most of those subtle flavor differences pretty much disappear when you mix them with any strongly flavored ingredient though, which is why it doesn't matter that much which one you use in most cocktails. Tasting a potato and grain vodka made from the same still was really interesting. I didn't like the grain one at all, although I don't know if I said that on the radio at the time or was more diplomatic! www.michiganpublic.org/arts-culture/2021-07-02/cheers-michigan-potato-vodka-in-a-hawaiian-named-drink