Guerilla Chicken is the new Stoli and maybe Russian Standard. Dancing Puffin could be the new Zubrowka Bison Grass. While Clusius could be the next Chopin and Nykur the new Torunska Ziemiaczana. Forty tulip bulbs are used to make a bottle of Dutch Clusius vodka and the only Faroe Islands vodka is made from volcanic water filtered through twelve layers of 5.5 million-year-old basalt.
New World wines are now mainstream and accolades are nothing new.
But now New World vodkas are making a stir. Russian, Polis,h and traditional Baltic bloc vodka makers are being shaken by competition from the new boys on the small-batch block. In both hemispheres. Any country with arable land and unpolluted water sources can make premium, top-shelf vodka. There are so many vodkas, that it is now difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. www.masterofmalt.com delivers the best worldwide.
Charcoal-filtered, sand-filtered (Cornish Connie Glaze), or unfiltered, quality vodkas are being made everywhere from Dingle in Ireland to the Cardona Distillery, New Zealand which makes “The Reid” single malt vodka. Vodkas are being produced worldwide using everything from Buddha’s hands, snap frost grapes, seaweed, wasabi, honey, bacon, Jaffa cakes, sweet potatoes, chili, chocolate, spelled, almonds, lemongrass, yuzu, turmeric, melon (Roberto Cavalli), spiced pears ( Scottish Esker Vodka), ivy (English Lumber), ancient non-GMO rye grains, Irish peat casks, sugar cane (Japanese Tokyo Nights ), sausage trees, and organic blue agave (Utah’s Ogden Valley) to icebergs ( Newfoundland’s Iceberg Vodka ) and condensed fog. San Francisco’s Hangar I distillery combines Napa Valley grapes with caught fog.
Iceland has Reyka, Norway Bivost and Barkesten, Switzerland Fire & Ice and Fly, and Belgium Mary White. Using Tempranillo grapes Madrid has Santamaria while Jackal and Basroom are made in the Basque Country. Austria has edelweiss-infused vodka.
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Australia boasts Hippocampus, Tasmanian 666 made with Cape Grim water (from a region where it rains 187 days a year), Small Mouth, Fire Drum, Gand great Southern Plain vodka while New Zealand is represented by Blue Duck, Broken Shed, Black Collar, Scapegrace, and Broken Hearts which was the 2022 Vodka of The Year. There are now also the African-inspired VUSA and the India-influenced Desi Daru and Indian Smoke Lab Aniseed vodka. The Philippines makes Archipelago Lava Rock filtered through lava stones from the volcanoes of Taal and Maya.
Good American vodkas include Texas’s Tito’s, California’s St George Spirits, and Blinking Owl Orange. In The US Virgin Islands, Mutiny Island breadfruit vodka is rested in charred American virgin oak. Canada’s finest include Sheringham Pacific, Defiance Maple Toffee, Georgian Bay, Spirit of York, Alberta Pure, and Vodkow, made from dairy permeate.
Premium French vodkas include Le Philtre, ultra-premium Ciroc, Le Petit Rhone’s Grands Domaines, Audemus Umami, Cobalte made in Ay-Champagne and Maison Villevert organic vodka from the Cognac region which also produces the vanilla-forward Sautelle. Germany has Niemand. In Italy, there are very good vodkas such as Blu Lie, Altamura, and Sicilian Panarea. Israel’s most famous vodka is AVIV 613.
But, as in artisanal gins, it is the UK that is leading the way in New World vodkas. A Waste-Not-Want-Not collaboration between a distillery with its own wormery in London’s East End, a former Drinks Business Woman of the Year” and a Portuguese olive farmer has resulted in an “elevated drinks experience” in the form of the first Olive Oil Vodka.
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Haggerston-based “58 and Co” is a multi-award-winning, independent, sustainable distillery founded by TV cocktail expert Carmen O’Neal who has partnered with “Citizens of Soil” to create the latest disruptive spirit and cocktail ingredient. The daughter of an aromatherapist, Canadian-born O’Neal worked as a make-up artist and image consultant as well as a shoe designer. “My footwear company was just about to go into production when I got run over by a lorry. The side of my body and my hand were crushed”. Now she is crushing olives.
“58 & Co” is the UK’s first female-founded alcohol brand to be awarded B Corp status. Sustainability is at the heart of 58 and CO – from the recycled glass bottles, labels made from discarded grape skins, stills powered by solar panels, and plastic waste that gets made into coasters. The CO-LAB Series celebrates sustainability by rescuing excess by-products. A Shochu that has been created in collaboration with the UK’s first sake brewery, KANPAI. “I love creating something that people enjoy and brings people together. Something that has people laughing and having fun.”
Sustainability is driving innovation. Using surplus grain spirit five-times distilled and charcoal filtered, London’s Hayman’s Respirited Vodka claims to be “the best vodka in the world and the best vodka for the world.”
Subvertor Guerilla Chicken is flavored with raspberry, rosehip, and nettle to represent the temperance-era Blood Tonic drink. Disruptive infusions are not just a gin trope. Flavored vodkas are catching up fast and the latest is vodka. The UK’s Manchester-based spirits distributor Ten Locks’ new planet-positive vodka brand is made with 100% British peas: Pod Pea Vodka. Made in Scotland, Nadar is another pea vodka. Peas are an incredibly sustainable crop ‘fixing nitrogen into the soil they grow in, which reduces the need for nitrogen-rich fertilizers and lowers cost in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The vodka is bottled in transition glass, which is glass before it is turned into flint (clear glass). Skipping this step in the processing allows for less waste. Each bottle varies slightly and has little imperfections. Just like peas. The veggie vodka is the fruit of three years of trial and experimentation. Other ingredients include sea kelp and asparagus.
Scotland has become a vodka-producing nation. The Dancing Puffin Distillery is located in Western Ross in the Highlands. Others with good reputations are Arbikie, NB (North Berwick), Ogilvy, Valt, and Dunnet Bay Holy Grass.
Chapel Down, the UK’s leading winemaker, diversified into spirits with a Chardonnay Vodka. In the Channel Islands, Jersey Mash is made from Jersey potatoes. Black Lion is made from the whey of pure sheep’s milk by Tim and Tanya Spittle. Wales has Penderyn Distillery’s Five as well as Ewenique Sheep Whey Vodka made by Bryn Perry, Rebecca Morris, and a flock of East Friesian ewes in Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire. Paul Hodgson’s Guerrilla Chicken Subverter vodka is made in Derby.
Even vodka bottle designs are changing. The Dutch LOUERS is contained in a spikey bottle while NEFT (the Russian word for oil), crafted in Austria comes in black or white aluminum, ring-pull oil barrel It was invented by a petroleum engineer so oil workers could enjoy their vodka without their bottles shattering. Vodka (from vodka, and water) has been produced in Poland since the eighth century. Allegedly, it increased fertility and awoke lust. Wyborowa (meaning excellent) dates to 1823. Luksusowas to 928. The Polocki recipe goes back to 1816 when County Alfred 1 Polocku inherited the castle and distillery between Krakow and Lviv. In 1857, the family became purveyor to the Imperial court in Vienna.
But modern-day disruptors are no respecters of tradition or monopoly. Another Cold War has well and truly begun.