I have been a light drinker of Scotch and Cognac and have a few bottles of medium range and one or two bottles of the higher range libations on hand. I have never stocked up on other drinks like Vodka, gin and rum. I was gifted a bottle of Absolut vodka last Christmas, is that a good brand to stock up on for guest? I figure Appleton rum and Tanqueray gin are safe choices. Are there better alternatives?
Vodka, gin and rum advice needed,
- Thread starter Ceiling Cat
- Start date
In terms of gin, I'd recommend small batch or artisinal gin. Tanqueray and Bombay just don't seem to have the same depth of flavour (no offense to the previous poster's suggestions).
My personal recommendations:
Hendricks is a very popular top-shelf option. Great cucumber flavour.
Dillon's Unfiltered 22 is an interesting local option - a bit cloudy, very flavourful. Base alcohol is made from Niagara region grapes.
Death's Door again has great flavour, but the base alcohol is from hard wheat, so if your guests have gluten allergies it may pose an issue. (I didn't seem to react to it though) American made.
JR's Dry Organic is another great local option, made right here in Toronto. It's absolutely wonderful in a martini.
Victoria is another great Canadian gin, made in Victoria, BC. I find it to be a bit sweeter, with almost a coconut flavour. It's quite pleasant.
The Botanist is a personal favourite of mine. Not local, but the hand-harvested wild botanicals bring almost a kind of energy to the gin.
My 0.02. There's quite a few gins out there that I haven't had a chance to try yet, I'm looking forward to reading some responses from other gin lovers.
My personal recommendations:
Hendricks is a very popular top-shelf option. Great cucumber flavour.
Dillon's Unfiltered 22 is an interesting local option - a bit cloudy, very flavourful. Base alcohol is made from Niagara region grapes.
Death's Door again has great flavour, but the base alcohol is from hard wheat, so if your guests have gluten allergies it may pose an issue. (I didn't seem to react to it though) American made.
JR's Dry Organic is another great local option, made right here in Toronto. It's absolutely wonderful in a martini.
Victoria is another great Canadian gin, made in Victoria, BC. I find it to be a bit sweeter, with almost a coconut flavour. It's quite pleasant.
The Botanist is a personal favourite of mine. Not local, but the hand-harvested wild botanicals bring almost a kind of energy to the gin.
My 0.02. There's quite a few gins out there that I haven't had a chance to try yet, I'm looking forward to reading some responses from other gin lovers.
It depends if it's grain or potato(for example) and number of times distilled-among few other factors.
Not really. There is no difference between H2H5OH from fermenting potatoes or grains.
Vodka is not distilled the same way as Cognac or Whiskey, which is generally done in two stages. The objective is to preserve the complex tastes from the wine or beer in the end product.
Vodka is generally distilled in a column (effectively hundreds of stages) and most often followed by a filtering through activated charcoal, as the objective is to produce the cleanest C2H5OH, which is then mixes with pure H2O to create Vodka.
The difference between (well produced) vodkas is in marketing.
Here is another secret for you: Some vodka is made from ethylene: C2H4 +H2O ==> C2H5OH (ethylene produced from crude oil)
Yup to the last sentence. Isn't that where the Russian habit of peppering vodka comes from? To carry the diesel traces found on top of bad vodka to the bottom of the glass?
It's all the same. Yet, different vodkas have different tastes, smells and textures. I guess you need to have a taste for it.
I am not going to try to break down what the marketing people have spent a lot of money building.
http://www.lcbo.com/lcbo/product/luksusowa-vodka/253302#.Vtub4Y3Sncs
Smooth tasting vodka . A good quality vodka made in Poland from potatoes . I don't get the bad affects in the morning after drinking Luksusowa . There used to be another vodka called Spud but I don't see it any more on the shelves . It's also made with potatoes hence the name Spud .
I can drink this stuff in straight shots , it's that smooth .
Smooth tasting vodka . A good quality vodka made in Poland from potatoes . I don't get the bad affects in the morning after drinking Luksusowa . There used to be another vodka called Spud but I don't see it any more on the shelves . It's also made with potatoes hence the name Spud .
I can drink this stuff in straight shots , it's that smooth .
A funny pricing discrepancy at LCBO (LGBT
). Grey Goose and Belvedere 750's are the same price. 2 bottles of 375 Belv. costs 60 cents less than a 750 and $2 less than 2 375's of Grey Goose. You can thank me later. I use Stoli for mixers.
If I drink vodka I like the Zubrowka Bison Grass distilled from rye. It has very good unique taste not that boring like others and nice color.
That is a good vodka, only problem is that the export version isn't as nice as the domestic version. Its almost worth a trip to Poland to taste it there.
Ethanol is ethanol, but pretense, prestige and so called social class is another matter, as you mentioned fueled by marketing. There is however a craft in producing fermented and distilled spirits. The dopamine receptors in my brain love all brands and do not discriminate, however my pocket book does. It is also a useful art to learn and play the labels game in certain social circles for a variety of reasons.
I figure any vodka, gin and rum I stock up on is for mixing, so any well known brand label will please the guest and it does not have to be top shelf brand.
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