There were two goals: to find the most drinkable yet reasonably priced vodka, and to see if there is a discernible difference between low end and high end bottles. The way I saw it, it was a win-win situation - either we confirmed that our palates were sufficiently honed to detect different vodka echelons, or we discovered that a low-priced bottle would be sufficiently drinkable for our needs.
After outlining different tests - sipability, swishability, mouth-feel, throat-feel, eye-burn - we got down to business. Most of them were drinkable. And, as expected, we all chose the least expensive as the worst, describing it as something we wouldn't drink again but may be able to use to strip varnish.
The biggest surprise was that we all rated the most expensive choice, Russian Diamond, as second worst, while we all rated one of the middle of the road selections, Putinka, as the smoothest with the softest flavor. And, yes, it's named after you know who.
Stay tuned for Vodka Tasting Round #2, when we include Russian Standard and Stolichnaya.
*For metrictards: one half liter is approximately 10 shots if you pour a biggish 50 mL shot (I believe a standard shot in the US is closer to 40mL). So you pay 50 cents per shot if you buy a bottle, which might explain part of the drinking problem in this country.
3 comments:
I think 44mL is the Ivy League standard...but 60 mL is a MAN sized serving.
Don't you just pour to the top of the drinking vessel? What's this "measuring" you're all talking about?
One of my professors told me that her uncle served in the Russia-Finnish war back in the 30s and came back with a 500mL canteen. Apparently in the evenings when he played dominoes with his friends on the street, he would fill it to the brim with vodka. Then he would down the entire thing in one sitting and not drink any more for the night. She said she never saw him drunk.
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