Tasting Vodka Drinks

I just signed up for this thing and I had to choose an area where I feel comfortable. I've been a bartender off and on for the past 3 or so years (more on than off, mind you) and I've managed to come up with a few tricks here and there. I've even made a couple of great tasting vodka drinks.

But first, you have to ask yourself, how do I make vodka taste great? Personally, I consider vodka as the "junior varsity" of all liquors. It's odorless and tasteless by and large. It is completely submissive to the additional flavorings you choose to add. There's a reason why 3 out of 4 high schoolers choose vodka over any other alcoholic beverage.

Ok, that wasn't a real statistic, so don't go looking it up, I was just making a point. Vodka is easy, which is probably why I chose to write here for my first article.

After you've shaken (or stirred) off your pre-conceived notions about the difficulty of a vodka drink, choose your poison. What kind of drink suits you? Stiff? Fruity? Colorful? Surely a guy would feel a bit funny holding a bright pink stemmed drink at a bar, or at home for that matter, unless nobody's around and if a guy wants to put on his mom's old wedding dress and dance around the house do the Pretty Woman Soundtrack, who's to stop him? But I digress, point is, despite readers getting up in arms about me being stereotypical, there is a general etiquette to what drinks we drink based on our gender.

After you nailed down what kind of vodka drinker you are, now is just as good a time as any to choose that particular brand of vodka. If I were to break down and proclaim atop a mountain my love for vodka, I would definitely not be brand specific. Different vodkas are just as good as any for certain drinks without hitting your wallet quite as hard. Drinking it straight up? Go with the good stuff. Making a cosmopolitan? The cheaper, the better.

I will admit that the lower end models do carry risk of hangovers and bad tastes. Which is why I would recommend them only as part of a mixed drink and only if that mixed drink has cranberry juice in it. Cranberry juice is a natural diuretic and, though it's not a foolproof hangover cure, it will definitely take the edge off the next morning.

Speaking of hangovers, learn to love them. If drinking were easy, everybody would be doing it.When it comes to making the heavily mixed drinks, such as an appletini, or a cosmopolitan, most people run to a flavored vodka like Tiny Tim to a crutch (not really, he didn't run all that often) Don't get me wrong, at crunch time, it's not a bad option, but if you've got some time to really make a drink, it's no substitute for natural fruit juices.

EXAMPLE: A cosmopolitan is a simple drink. It's a shot and a half of vodka a half shot of triple sec, squeeze of lime (or lime juice) and a splash of cranberry juice. To make it a "classic" cosmopolitan, substitute a citrus vodka. Now, if you really want a cosmopolitan that will knock your socks off, try this:

In a martini shaker, combine two slices lemon with two slices lime with that half shot of triple sec I was telling you about last paragraph. Using a muddler, mash the fruit until all of the juice is squeezed. If you don't have a muddler, bend a spoon where the handle meets, erm, the spoon part so that the bottom of the spoon can make contact with the fruit at the bottom of the martini shaker. Next step is to add ice. Alcohol melts ice incredibly, so make sure you pack as much ice in there as you can. Add the vodka (plain, non-flavored, and inexpensive). Add cranberry juice, shake, strain, drink. Optional garnish is a lemon peel.

Now that's a damn good cosmopolitan. Not that I drink them, but everyone I've served them to has referred to it, in some round about way or another, as the best cosmo, they've ever had.

For everyone scrolling this thing just to find my picks for vodka, you can stop now. I would have to say that my favorite brands to work with are Grey Goose for it's popularity, Ciroc because it's made of grape skins, Chopin because it's made of potato skins, Three Olives/Van Gogh because of their shear number of different flavors*, and Absolut because when people ask me for a drink with this particular brand, I like to respond by saying "absolutely"...I need funnier material.

*I know I just went on about how fruit juices are superior to infused flavorings, but I don't typically carry any pomegranates around with me just to make martinis.