Vodka - From Russia, with Love

Vodka

From Russia, with Love

WORDS ° Ben Davidson & Chris Middleton

Good vodka is the spirit of subtlety, mystery and intrigue. At it’s best, it captures the rich textures and flavours of the source’s fermentable sugars to provide a powerful yet smooth spirit with nuances of flavour and delicate aromas that titillate the senses. Each vodka worth drinking neat, can be seen to be a unique assemblage of the endless variables that can be employed during its creation, from raw material through to filtration. But to fully understand vodka, one has to be acquainted with the fascinating story of the rise and development of this inherently understated, yet sometimes overhyped spirit.

RUSSIAN ORIGINS

The history of vodka, from the 1500s, also forms a central part of the history of Russia. It was not until the first decade of the 16th century that vodka made its debut in Moscow. This is a country that remained both vodka obsessed and feudal until the 1917 Revolution. Of course, vodka survived the Tsars and the communists who followed. The Tsars and their entourage of nobles, merchants and administrators controlled just about everything; the land, production and the sales of goods. From the 17th century, the Tsars monopolised vodka distilling and sales through state owned taverns. By the mid-1600s vodka had become Russia’s favourite drink of social, ceremonial and recreational life.

Tsar Alexis used the excuse of the widespread vodka abuse and drunkenness in 1652 to ban all distilleries and put the production of vodka under the state. This secured him a lucrative source of revenue to fund his empire and private indulgences.

By the end of the 17th century, the word vodka had become common parlance for Russia’s distilled spirit. By the early 18th century, another Tsar was selling distilling concessions to raise more income. These rights to distil vodka were given to privileged nobles and sold to merchants, known by the whimsical term, ‘tax farming’.

Vodka was Russia’s universal drink and generated half the state’s revenue from licenses and sales. Vodka funded the lavish lifestyles of the nobility and paid for Russia’s frequent wars. Peasant and Tsar seemed locked into a drunken dance of mutual intoxication.

ORIGINS OF STYLE

We think of vodka as a clear and near flavourless spirit. This is 20th century vodka. Since the beginning, vodka was coloured and flavoured to make it palatable, and was even used as a medicinal remedy. This same flavouring phenomenon was happening to all white spirits, from Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands to England, Scotland and Ireland.

It was not until the 19th century, when science and knowledge brought about profound changes to the quality of spirits, that significant improvements were made in fermentation, distillation and filtration, shaping standards for the vodka we drink today.

FLAVOURED VODKA

If we stepped out of a carriage in Moscow in the 1780s to attend a princely dinner, we would discover vodka was double-distilled, possibly triple-distilled or even quadruple-distilled. This high proof vodka was diluted with water for drinking, and fashionably flavoured with honey water. Our host would proudly present his estate distillery’s range of aromatised vodkas. Some nobility had hundreds of flavours: caraway, St John’s Wort, honey, wormwood,

Blackcurrant

Cloves

Lemon

Winston Churchill called Russia “a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma“. Never truer than with vodka.

hops and juniper, acorn, birch bark, cherry, mint, pepper, anise, cloves, willow, blackcurrant, raspberry, melon, bitters, lemon, cinnamon, aniseed, cumin and rose, just to name a few.

One hundred years later, these flavoured vodkas were standardised for mass consumption. The leading flavours were cherry, raspberry and currant, sweetened with sugar. The modern flavoured vodka trend is really a recycling of the original way vodka was made. Russian aristocrat distillers in the 18th century competed amongst themselves by compounding hundreds of flavoured vodkas to demonstrate their connoisseurship. Today, flavoured vodka represents only 5 per cent of global vodka sales. Western liquor store shelves contain hundreds of flavoured vodkas, ranging from the traditional additives such as raspberry and vanilla, to unusual, such as bacon, butter, hemp, peanuts and even cut grass.

RISE OF VODKA

Is it not strange that vodka, a traditional spirit, synonymous with Eastern Europe and especially Russia, became the post-modern drink of the West? Since its introduction into the Western Hemisphere in the 1950s, it has become the second largest spirit category in Australia, the largest in America and dominates global sales. More intriguing was that non-mainstream communities adopted vodka. Who could have predicted vodka would become the drink ‘de rigueur’ amongst youth, emergent gay communities, liberated women’s groups, even macho cohorts, as well as the spirit of choice for suave fictional characters like James Bond. It was quite an achievement that the spirit recruited patronage from such disparate and self-aware groups of free-thinking drinkers, all fearful of Soviet world domination.

We are also talking about a spirit that is defined as tasteless, odourless, clear and usually 40 per cent ABV. The secret to vodka’s success was in the marketing of the major brands, creating exciting imagery and highlighting the products purity. Vodka’s sensory appeal was its clean taste and subtle character. It goes with just about everything and anyone. Its purity connoted health and aspiration. Naked ethanol climbed to the top of the alcohol market and triumphed. What sweet irony.

RUSSIAN VODKA STANDARDS

As they experimented with different flavour combinations, vodka distillers were also seeking greater purity and a cleaner taste. They pioneered new filtration and clarification processes. They set the vodka quality standards on filtration, the number of distillations and minimum drinking strength (40 per cent ABV) in the late 19th century. They were indifferent to which raw materials were used, allowing grain, potatoes, sugar beet and other carbohydrates to be the distilled sources of alcohol.

Today, modern Russia again dominates vodka production and sales, with over 4.4 billion litres produced. With vodka now firmly established in all western countries, should we be surprised regulations, production and quality standards vary around the world. In 2008, the EU required vodka not made from cereals or potatoes must label the carbohydrate used for the base spirit.

The US has set rigid conditions on charcoal filtering, distillation proof and sale, at not less than 40 per cent ABV. Australia, in the late 1960s, recognised vodka as a distinct spirit made from any carbohydrate and allowed it to be sold at the lower 37 per cent ABV, whereas the EU said 37.5 per cent. Australian vodka can be made from grain, molasses, grape spirit, potatoes, even dairy milk.

PURE VODKA

Vodka is about purity. Purity means getting as close to clean ethyl alcohol, while still leaving a pleasing character in the vodka. Brands today have better fermentations. Different carbohydrates are fermented using proprietary yeasts, multiple distillations are conducted in both column and pot stills, and then a number of filtrations are done to remove undesirable congeners and fusel oils. These quality brands bottle vodka that is of high purity, but with discernible and subtle character.

At the dawn of Russian distilling, vodka was very crudely made on primitive earthenware and wooden tub stills, using mainly rye, oats, barley or buckwheat. These hardy cereals survived the harsh Russian climate and would later form part of the recipes each distillery mashed to make their house style of vodka. By the late 18th century, European copper pot stills were being imported by aristocratic families at their estate vodka distilleries. Any surplus production, by law, was sold to the Tsar at fixed prices.

CHARCOAL FILTRATION

What differentiated vodka from other neutral white spirits made in Europe was Russia’s attention to filtration. This rectification process made the spirit cleaner and purer to the taste. Since the early days of vodka, producers have used some crude methods to liberate the alcohol, such as freezing out the alcohol, filtering through woollen blankets, sand, and charcoal, as well as using coagulants like milk and egg white to filter out suspended particles. The big break-through came when Johann Tobias Lowitz, a German chemist working at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, undertook a systematic study of charcoal filtration in 1785. He studied the absorbency properties of dozens of woods on different substances, reporting the superior value of birch wood, alder and limewood charcoal for vodka rectification. This was the turning point that would start to improve the taste of Russian vodka through the 19th century.

Further advances in filtration and quality control were also improving standards and product quality. Sensory studies by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1865, recommended vodka not be sold under 40 per cent ABV, which became law in 1894. New discoveries in filtration gave way to tighter regulations, from controlling ratios of charcoal powder to pellets, depth of filtration columns and frequency of replacement, to the maximum age of birch wood for charcoal making. Another Russian would invent activated carbon in 1907. When the Prohibition on distilling lifted in 1924, activated carbon filtration joined improvements in continuous distillation to usher in the new era of ‘modern vodka’.

RAW MATERIALS

In 1826, Tsar Nicholas abolished the State monopoly on vodka production. Distilling licences could be purchased by free citizens and even foreigners who were not nobility. By 1860, only one Moscow distiller was Russian, the rest were French and German. It was during this time that French, German and English equipment began being imported into Russia, leading to advances in steam and semi-continuous distilling. The French had also made significant advances into sugar beet distilling when the Napoleonic Wars blocked their West Indies colonies and sugarcane trade. Germany had no sugar cane colonies, encouraging them to pioneer potato distilling. Sugar beets and potato became cheap and reliable raw materials for distilling. These were subterranean vegetables, less prone to surface crop losses from frosts, floods, diseases and wars. The 19th century saw grain harvests rebound under improved cultivation practises, the introduction of mechanisation and a long run of good seasons. Russia was producing grain surpluses which they exported to Europe as foreign exchange.

Mint

Wheat

FUN FACT: The official measurement of vodka was in buckets (around 13 litres) until 1895, after which litres were adopted and bottled vodka did not start until after 1885.

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

Peasants by 1860 represented over 80 per cent of the 60 million Russians. The following year, Tsar Nicholas II emancipated tens of millions of Russian serfs. The demand for vodka began to soar. With grain prices rising due to exports, cheaper production turned to the poor tasting potato and beets to meet the working class demand for cheap and plentiful vodka.

By the 1880s, new continuous distilling columns were introduced from Europe but proved impractical to meet Russia’s insatiable thirst for cheap vodka. The problem with the new stills was Russian rye; it is a difficult mash to handle due to the grain’s inherent stickiness. So too were beets and potatoes, both thick mashes that clogged the equipment. Russian engineers began redesigning stills to work specifically with these materials. By the 1890s, new continuous distillation columns and retorts gave way to more highly rectified spirits.

RUSSIAN PROHIBITION

As cheap and plentiful vodka flooded Russian society, the incidences of drunkenness grew alarmingly high. By 1893, over 3.6 billion litres of vodka flooded across the country. The abuse of vodka had become internationally infamous. Australian newspapers reported the extent of Russian drunkenness was unparalleled to any other country. Articles described ‘King Vodka’ as the new Russian Tyrant where ‘peasants drink vodka until they die’. To kerb consumption and gain control of the rich revenue stream

vodka was producing, 60 per cent of the state’s income, Tsar Nicholas II nationalised all distilleries in 1904.

The announcement of the First World War was the excuse the Tsar needed to prevent excessive consumption. In July 1914, he declared a national prohibition on distilling, shutting down his private industry. The public sale of any alcohol he restricted to restaurants, where the bourgeoisie and aristocratic elite could afford to inhabit, quaff fine wines and toss down good vodka. The Russian people must have been distraught that they were excluded from their beloved vodka. In the middle of the Great War, the country imploded with the 1917 Russian Revolution.

The new Communists did keep prohibition. The new USSR appeared in 1922 and three years later the prohibition on sales was abolished. Taking a leaf from the Tsars authoritarian rule, the new Soviet State took full control of Russian liquor production and sales. Distilling started in 1924 and began to incorporate new distillation technology and filtration systems.

VODKA GOES WEST

The 1917 Revolution also sent many Russians and distillers into exile. The famous Smirnov family, at the time of Prohibition a leading vodka distillery in Moscow selling 45 million bottles in 1896, saw some family members escape from Russia. Vladimir Smirnoff (he changed the name to be a French sounding version in 1923), followed other Russian émigrés to cities of a safe harbour. First, he moved to Istanbul in 1919, then Sophia, Bulgaria, and eventually settled in Nice, France. In each city, Vladimir licenced local distillers with the Smirnoff name and recipe to market vodka to exiled Russians and locals.

In 1933, he met a Russian-American, Rudolph Kunnet whose family originated in Ukraine and had supplied the Smirnov Moscow distillery with grain. He sold the Smirnoff rights in the US to Kunnet. Two months after US prohibition had been repealed in 1933, Kunnet began making Smirnoff vodka in Bethel, Connecticut. Kunnet’s Smirnoff vodka was serving the Slavic immigrant communities around the greater New York area.

By 1939, Smirnoff was selling 5,000 cases a year. After the Second World War, the US vodka market exploded to over 850,000 cases in 1953. Vodka was on a roll and Smirnoff was fast becoming the world’s most popular vodka.

The same story gets repeated in the UK, Canada, and Australia. To meet the increasing demand caused by Eastern European immigrants, new large vodka distilleries were commissioned in Anglo markets during the early 1950s. Instead of Russian rye and wheat, Canada and the US used mainly corn and wheat, substituting local hardwoods and activated carbon for Russian materials. In Australia, we used a barley/wheat mix with activated carbon to make our vodkas, such as Smirnoff. Vodka became a truly international spirit, in both consumption and places of production.

RAW MATERIALS

Raw materials play a big part in driving the primary aromas and flavours in vodka. Potatoes, now astutely distilled in modern distilleries, offer the drinker a more voluptuous mouth- feel. A nutty, mineral note is detectable in the rye vodka. Wheat brings out pepper and anise subtleties. Each raw material leaves small but discernible traces in its vodka. Different yeast strains can leave microscopic flavour traces from the esters and chemical compounds during fermentation. Then different still technologies and distilling techniques impart subtle character on the spirit. Finally, different filtering processes and materials imprint their finishing impression.

DETERMINANTS OF STYLE

When vodka distillers talk about their secret recipes, it may involve a unique combination of grains, including local varieties or ‘single estate’ harvests, together with their proprietary yeast. It could have been slow double or triple-distilled in copper or stainless-steel stills, or rectified through retorts. It could even be a highly rectified spirit produced to 95 per cent ABV purity in a continuous column still. Finally, different filtration methods using deep beds of hardwood charcoal, special quartz sand or activated carbon, affect the sensory properties of the final product. These production variables are as endless as the flavour nuances we can detect between vodkas. So, while all vodka can be defined as odourless, clear and tasteless, each brand will show its subtle character and unique flavour to the attentive drinker.

PARTING SHOT

Sometimes marketing success happens by accident. Rudolph Kunnet, who began producing Smirnoff in America in 1934, was facing financial difficulties by 1939. He sold the Smirnoff rights and recipe for $14,000, plus 5 per cent royalties for five years to John Martin at Heublein in Hartford, Connecticut. When Heublein started production, they did not have enough Smirnoff bottle caps, so they used some leftover caps identified as whiskey. Ten cases with these caps were shipped to Columbia, South Carolina. No sooner had the order been delivered than the distributor ordered another fifty cases, then five hundred. Intrigued by the leaping sales in Columbia, Martin called on the distributor. He discovered an enterprising salesman was selling Smirnoff as ‘white whiskey’ – no smell, no taste. The locals were substituting Smirnoff with whiskey, mixing with milk, orange juice, cola and whatever took their fancy.