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Cocktails A to Z
About Vodka
About Vodka
Vodka is a typically colorless liquor, always distilled from fermented grain or potatoes. It is thought that the term is a diminutive of the Slavic word "voda" (woda) for "water."
Except for insignificant amounts of flavorings, vodka consists of water and alcohol (ethanol). Vodka usually has an alcohol content ranging from 35% to 70% by volume ("Vodka Rassputin"). The classic Russian vodka is 40% (80 degrees proof), the number being attributed to the famous Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. According to the Vodka Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Mendeleev thought the perfect percentage to be 38, but since spirits in his time were taxed on their strength the percentage was rounded up to 40 to simplify the tax computation.
Although vodka is generally drunk neat (alone, with no mixer) in its Central European and Scandinavian homeland, its growth in popularity elsewhere owes much to its usefulness in cocktails and other mixed drinks, such as the Bloody Mary, the Screwdriver, the White Russian, Geezer Sauce, the Gimlet, and the Vodka Martini (also known as a Vodkatini), a dry martini made with vodka instead of gin.
Vodka's History
The origins of vodka (and of its name) cannot be traced definitively, but it is believed to have originated in the grain-growing region that now embraces Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia. It also has a long tradition in Scandinavia.
Little is known about the early history of the drink in Europe. The first written record of vodka in Poland dates from 1405 in the Sandomierz Court Registry. In Russia, the first written usage of the word vodka in an official document in its modern meaning is dated by the decree of Empress Catherine I of June 8, 1751 that regulated the ownership of vodka distilleries.
Another possible origin of the word can be found in the Novgorod chronicle in records dated 1533, where the term "vodka" is used in the context of herbal alcoholic tinctures. A number of pharmaceutical lists contain the terms "vodka of bread wine" and "vodka in half of bread wine". As alcohol had long been used as a basis for medicines, this implies that the term vodka is a noun derived from the verb "vodit,'" "razvodit'", "to dilute with water." Hence "vodka of bread wine" would be a water dilution of a distilled spirit .
While the word could be found in manuscripts and in lubok, pictures with text explaining the plot, a Russian predecessor of the comic), it began to appear in Russian dictionaries in the mid-19th century.
Vodka Cocktails
Apple Pie
Appletini
Banana Punch
Bitch Slammer
Black Russian
Bloody Mary
Blue Lagoon
Bull Shot
Caesar
Cosmopolitan
Dirty Bong Water
Ectoplasm
Funky Blue Drink
Fuzzy Navel
Grayhound
Godmother
Harvey Wallbanger
Kamikaze
Kremlin Colonel
Lemon Drop
Long Island Iced Tea
Long Vodka
Mudslide
Rene
Romulan Ale
Salty Dog
Screwdriver
Sea Breeze
Sex On The Beach
Soviet Cocktail
Vodka Martini
White Russian
Woo Woo
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