VODKA
All vodka still smells vaguely like something used to sterilize a wound,
if you can notice the smell at all, but its smell is its least important
aspect. As liquors go, vodka is boring. One can describe a scotch or
wine as being “mellow,” “fierce,” or any number of things, but you havto fill vodka with essence of cranberry in order to give it any character.
The first important thing to mention, often and loudly, is that all domestic
vodkas taste the same. This is true, and spare us any conversation
about the fact that Smirnoff was found, in a blind taste test, to be “the
best.” It isn’t for you. It’s too easy to find and much too cheap. Keep the
conversation to eighty-proof vodkas, since the higher-proof ones can
make you crazy anyway and are not for nice people.
The truly chic vodkas have kept to tradition and have no taste;
this was presumably so that the drinker had no idea what he was
doing while getting blasted, and it remains one of vodka’s finest
traits to this day. Clearly the trend toward infused vodkas, whether
lemon, lime, hot pepper, currant, vanilla, or venison, is not for a
respectable palate—it is for those who want to ingest every food
group at cocktail time. Or, they’re for grown-up kids who long for the
days of Shirley Temples.
Stolichnaya, though still a fine vodka, is very “last millennium”;
while once amazingly hip, Finlandia and Absolut are your father’s vodkas.
Ketel One, from Holland, utterly devoid of taste, is “in”; Grey
Goose, an altogether unexciting quaff, has been marketed so well that
the rich folk who are willing to spend double what other vodkas cost
actually think it has a taste. Luksusowa, a Polish potato vodka that
tastes oddly like gasoline and somehow manages to make people
drunker faster, can be enjoyed with some freshly ground pepper on top.
The heartburn factor here is very high, but it dazzles people. But for
heaven’s sake, have some self-respect and don’t drink Trump vodka, the
alcohol equivalent of a comb-over. There ought, by the way, to be a law
against putting orange juice or other colorful liquids in these vodkas,
so don’t become part of a crime statistic. Good vodka should be drunk
from the freezer or on the rocks with or without a twist of citrus; vodka
martinis are still acceptable if there’s no actual vermouth in the glass.
Sex and the City notwithstanding, avoid Cosmopolitans: they are anything
but.