70 Fun Facts About Vodka

The word 'vodka' was borrowed into English from Russian and literally translates as what?

'Little water': vodka is a diminutive of the Russian voda, 'water'; older Slavic names such as Polish gorzałka and Ukrainian horilka come from roots meaning 'to burn'.

Since the 1890s, the standard strength of vodka has been what percentage of alcohol by volume?

That is 80 US proof. The 40% figure was actually set by the Russian government in 1843, long before the Mendeleev legend attached itself to it.

The European Union sets what minimum alcohol content for a spirit to be sold as vodka?

EU spirit-drink regulation sets 37.5% as the minimum for vodka; the United States requires 40%, which is why some export bottlings differ from the home version.

The world's first written mention of the word wódka, in 1405 court documents, comes from which country?

The 1405 Akta Grodzkie court records of the Palatinate of Sandomierz, in Poland, used wódka for medicines and cosmetic cleansers rather than for a drink.

In 1386, Genoese ambassadors presented the first aqua vitae in Moscow to which Grand Prince?

The Genoese presented aqua vitae to Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, who had beaten the Tatars at Kulikovo in 1380; Russian monks later adapted wine distilling to make vodka.

Ivan III established the first Russian state monopoly on vodka in which year?

Ivan III's monopoly dates to 1474; by 1505 Russian vodka was being exported to Sweden, and state control of the drink funded the treasury for centuries.

By 1911, vodka made up roughly what share of all alcohol consumed in the Russian Empire?

By 1911 vodka accounted for about 89% of the alcohol drunk in the Russian Empire; vodka taxes supplied at times up to 40% of Tsarist state revenue.

Which empress's 1751 decree was the first official Russian document to use 'vodka' in its modern sense?

Empress Elizabeth's decree of 8 June 1751 regulated who could own vodka distilleries; before then 'vodka' in Russian usually meant herbal medicinal tinctures and the drink was 'bread wine'.

Which of these countries is NOT part of the so-called vodka belt?

The Czech Republic is beer country; the vodka belt runs across the Nordics, the Baltics, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, roughly north of the −2 °C January isotherm.

Under US regulations, which of these is forbidden for a spirit labelled as vodka?

Trace citric acid (up to 1,000 ppm) and a little sugar are allowed. The old requirement that vodka be 'without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color' has been dropped.

Balkan 176°, a vodka bottled at a notorious 88% alcohol by volume, comes from which country?

Balkan 176° is made in Bulgaria; its 88% ABV equals 176 proof, hence the name, and its label carries a long list of health warnings.

US regulations require vodka to be distilled to at least what proof before dilution?

US rules define vodka as neutral spirits distilled at or above 190 proof (95% ABV), which are then reduced to at least 80 proof for bottling.

Which product was the first Swedish spirit marketed as 'vodka' rather than brännvin?

Explorer, from the Swedish state monopoly Vin & Sprit, was the first Swedish spirit sold as 'vodka'; Absolut did not launch under that name until 1979.

Absolut Vodka is produced in only one place, Åhus, in which country?

It is made from winter wheat and sells over 100 million litres a year, making it one of the biggest spirit brands on earth after Smirnoff and Bacardi.

When Pernod Ricard bought Absolut in 2008 for €5.63 billion, who was the seller?

The Swedish state sold its Vin & Sprit monopoly, Absolut's owner, to Pernod Ricard in 2008; Sweden had nationalised its alcohol industry in 1917.

Which artist's $65,000 Absolut ad for its US importer launched the brand's long art campaign?

Andy Warhol painted the Absolut bottle for importer Michel Roux in the mid-1980s; Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and hundreds of other artists followed.

Which two brands joined Absolut in the American Marketing Association's Hall of Fame in 1992?

Coca-Cola and Nike were the only other brands in the AMA's Marketing Hall of Fame when the Absolut campaign, begun with TBWA's bottle-and-halo 'Absolut Perfection' ad in the early 1980s, was inducted in 1992.

Grey Goose, created in the 1990s by American importer Sidney Frank, is made in which country?

Frank chose France for its culinary prestige and hired a cognac maker, François Thibault, to develop the recipe; the wheat comes from Picardy.

Which company bought Grey Goose in 2004 for a reported US$2.2 billion?

Bacardi bought Grey Goose from Sidney Frank Importing in 2004 for about US$2.2 billion, seven years after Frank had launched the brand in 1997.

The 'honey deuce', a Grey Goose cocktail, became the signature drink of which event?

The honey deuce, created for the US Open in 2007 when Grey Goose became the tournament's official vodka, is garnished with honeydew melon balls that look like tennis balls.

The name Stolichnaya is the adjectival form of a Russian word meaning what?

Stolichnaya means 'of the capital' (stolitsa is Russian for capital city); the old label showed the Hotel Moskva, a Moscow landmark, to match.

Which American company bartered its product for Western rights to Stolichnaya in 1972?

PepsiCo's 1972 deal made Pepsi-Cola the first American consumer product produced and sold in the Soviet Union, with Stolichnaya flowing the other way; it followed Nixon's Moscow summit.

In March 2022 the Stoli Group dropped the name Stolichnaya for 'Stoli' in response to what?

The company also announced it would source its alcohol from Slovakia instead of Russia.

The version of Stolichnaya sold outside Russia is made in which country?

SPI Group's Stolichnaya is made at Latvijas Balzams in Riga, Latvia; the Russian state, which claims the trademark, sells a rival version at home.

Pyotr Smirnov's Moscow distillery, founded in 1864, pioneered which production technique in the 1870s?

Smirnov's distillery introduced charcoal filtration in the 1870s, producing a cleaner spirit; he also pioneered newspaper advertising for vodka and became purveyor to the Tsar in 1886.

With which slogan did Heublein finally sell Smirnoff as a 'white whiskey' after buying the US rights in 1939?

Heublein's John Martin, who paid $14,000 for the US rights, marketed Smirnoff as 'white whiskey' with the line 'No taste, no smell'; the bottles even had whiskey corks.

Smirnoff, the world's best-selling vodka in 2014, is owned by Diageo, a company based in which country?

Diageo is based in London, Britain; Smirnoff is distilled in Illinois for the US market and nowhere in Russia, which did not stop some bars boycotting it in 2022.

In the US, Smirnoff Ice is unusual for a Smirnoff product because it contains what?

American Smirnoff Ice contains no vodka at all: it is a brewed, citrus-flavoured malt beverage, while the version sold in most other countries is a premixed vodka drink.

A Moscow mule (vodka, ginger beer, lime) is traditionally served in a mug made of what?

The copper mug became the Moscow mule's trademark in 1940s Los Angeles; Heublein's John Martin photographed bartenders holding one beside a bottle of Smirnoff to sell the drink bar by bar.

In 2022 some bars renamed the Moscow mule after which other capital city?

The 'Kyiv mule' was a 2022 gesture of solidarity with Ukraine; the drink itself was born in 1940s Los Angeles when Smirnoff's owners and a ginger-beer maker had stock to shift.

Bartender Fernand Petiot claimed to have invented the Bloody Mary in 1921 at which Paris bar?

Harry's New York Bar on rue Daunou, a haunt of Hemingway and other American expats, also claims the White Lady and the Sidecar among its inventions.

Which Polish vodka brand is named after a composer?

Chopin vodka, made by Polmos Siedlce in eastern Poland, is named for the composer Fryderyk Chopin and is best known for its potato version.

Which comedian claimed to have created the Bloody Mary at New York's 21 Club in the 1930s?

George Jessel's 'newest pick-me-up', half tomato juice and half vodka, was printed by columnist Lucius Beebe in 1939; Petiot said he merely added the spices.

A Bloody Mary made with gin instead of vodka is known as what?

The Red Snapper swaps vodka for gin; a Bloody Maria uses blanco tequila, a Bloody Bull adds beef bouillon, and a Virgin Mary drops the alcohol altogether.

Canada's national cocktail, the Caesar, differs from a Bloody Mary chiefly by including what?

The Caesar uses Clamato, a tomato juice blended with clam broth, and is served in a celery-salt-rimmed glass; inventor Walter Chell said the idea came from spaghetti alle vongole.

Walter Chell invented the Caesar in 1969 as a signature drink for a new Italian restaurant in which city?

Chell spent three months perfecting the Caesar at the Calgary Inn (now the Westin) for its Marco's restaurant; an English regular reportedly declared it 'a good bloody Caesar'.

The name 'screwdriver' for vodka and orange juice first appeared in the 1940s in which country?

The earliest record is a 1949 Time magazine report of Americans in Ankara, Turkey, drinking vodka and orange juice they called a 'screwdriver'; the stirring-with-a-screwdriver story is unattributed.

Adding which Italian liqueur to a screwdriver turns it into a Harvey Wallbanger?

The drink was a 1969 marketing campaign by Galliano's importer, complete with a surfer cartoon character; the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers were nicknamed 'Harvey's Wallbangers'.

Which 1998 film, whose protagonist calls the drink a 'Caucasian', boosted the White Russian?

The Big Lebowski's Dude drinks White Russians throughout the film; the drink is simply a Black Russian (vodka and coffee liqueur) with cream added.

The Black Russian was created in 1949 by barman Gustave Tops at the Hotel Metropole in which city?

Gustave Tops mixed the Black Russian at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in honour of Perle Mesta, then US ambassador to Luxembourg; it has no Russian origin beyond the vodka.

Which orange liqueur goes into a classic cosmopolitan alongside vodka, cranberry and lime?

The IBA recipe pairs citron vodka with Cointreau, cranberry and fresh lime; bartender Neal Murray said his 1975 version was a Kamikaze with a splash of cranberry, and the first taster said 'How cosmopolitan.'

Toby Cecchini created the recognised cosmopolitan recipe at which Manhattan restaurant?

Cecchini's late-1980s recipe at the Odeon in Tribeca, using Absolut Citron and fresh lime juice, was his refinement of Cheryl Cook's mid-1980s South Beach drink.

Which London bartender is usually credited with inventing the espresso martini in the 1980s?

Dick Bradsell mixed the first espresso martini at London's Soho Brasserie in the 1980s for a model who asked for something to wake her up; it has neither gin nor vermouth.

James Bond's Vesper uses three measures of gin, one of vodka and half a measure of which apéritif?

Kina Lillet went out of production in 1986, so modern bartenders substitute Lillet Blanc or Cocchi Americano.

Which friend of Ian Fleming is credited with mixing the first Vesper cocktail?

Fleming inscribed Ivar Bryce's copy of Casino Royale 'For Ivar, who mixed the first Vesper and said the good word'; when Fleming finally tasted one he found it 'unpalatable'.

'Shaken, not stirred' first appears in which Ian Fleming novel, though not spoken by Bond himself?

In Diamonds Are Forever (1956) Bond's martini is described as 'shaken and not stirred'; on screen the line is first heard in Dr. No (1962), spoken by the villain.

Cîroc, the French vodka Sean Combs promoted from 2007, is unusually distilled from what?

The name blends the French cime (summit) and roche (rock), for the high-altitude Gaillac vineyards where the Mauzac grapes are grown.

The EU 'vodka war' over vodka labelling ended in a 2007 compromise named after which German MEP?

Horst Schnellhardt, a CDU MEP, brokered the 2007 compromise: any agricultural raw material may be used, but vodka not made from the traditional materials must state its raw material on the label; Poland called it the 'wódka war lost'.

Tito's Handmade Vodka is distilled in which American city?

Tito Beveridge founded Texas's first legal distillery in Austin in 1997; the corn-based vodka is distilled six times, and the 'handmade' claim drew lawsuits in 2014.

Ketel One is made by the Nolet Distillery, founded in 1691 in Schiedam, in which country?

The Nolet family has distilled in Schiedam, in the Netherlands, since 1691; 'ketel' is Dutch for pot still, and Diageo bought half the brand in 2008 for $900 million.

Belvedere Vodka, the official vodka of the Bond film Spectre, is named after what?

Belvedere takes its name from Belweder, the Warsaw palace that served as the Polish presidential residence and appears on the bottle; the rye vodka is made in Żyrardów and owned by LVMH.

Every bottle of Polish Żubrówka contains a blade of which plant, picked in the Białowieża Forest?

Bison grass (Hierochloe odorata) gives Żubrówka its pale green tint and vanilla-like flavour; the name comes from żubr, Polish for the European bison that grazes on it.

Żubrówka was illegal in the US before 2010 because its signature ingredient contains which compound?

Coumarin, the bison-grass compound from which the blood thinner warfarin was derived, is on the FDA's list of substances prohibited as food additives, so American Żubrówka mimics the flavour without it.

What does szarlotka, the name of a popular Żubrówka-and-juice drink, literally mean?

Szarlotka is Polish for apple cake, since the drink is Żubrówka topped with apple juice; abroad it is branded Apple ŻU or, in the UK, a Frisky Bison.

Crystal Head Vodka, sold in a skull-shaped bottle, was co-founded in 2008 by which actor?

Dan Aykroyd founded Crystal Head with artist John Alexander, who designed the skull bottle; its final filtrations pass through Herkimer 'diamonds', which are really quartz crystals.

Skyy vodka is instantly recognisable on the shelf for its bottle of what colour?

Skyy's cobalt-blue bottle, launched by inventor Maurice Kanbar in San Francisco in 1992, was designed to stand out on the shelf and became the brand's trademark.

Finlandia vodka is distilled from which grain?

Finnish six-row barley is distilled at Koskenkorva and blended with glacial spring water at Rajamäki; Coca-Cola HBC bought the brand from Brown-Forman in 2023.

Reyka vodka, whose water is drawn from a lava field, is made in which country?

Reyka, from the Icelandic word for smoke, is made at Borgarnes in Iceland, where William Grant & Sons built the distillery in 2005 to break into premium vodka.

Roughly how old was Mendeleev when the Tsarist government actually set vodka at 40% in 1843?

Mendeleev was born in 1834, so he was nine when the 40% standard was set in 1843; his 1865 dissertation dealt with alcohol concentrations over 70% and never mentioned vodka.

Russian Standard built its Saint Petersburg distillery to be near which lake, whose soft water it uses?

Russian Standard's distillery on the Neva in Saint Petersburg draws soft water from Lake Ladoga, Europe's largest lake; the winter-wheat spirit is filtered four times through charcoal.

The distinctive bottle of Polish rye vodka Wyborowa was designed by which architect?

Frank Gehry designed Wyborowa's twisted Exquisite bottle in 2003; the brand had been the first vodka registered as an international trademark, in 1927.

The first attested recipe for penne alla vodka appeared in a 1974 cookbook by which Italian actor?

Ugo Tognazzi's 1974 cookbook L'abbuffone called it pasta all'infuriata, 'enraged pasta', and suggested that a chilli-spiked Polish vodka let you skip the fresh chilli.

Besides tomato and vodka, what is the other defining ingredient of a vodka pasta sauce?

The ethanol emulsifies the sauce and balances the tomato and cream; half or more of the vodka evaporates during cooking.

Bakers sometimes substitute vodka for water to make which item flakier?

Vodka in pie crust adds moisture without forming gluten the way water does, since it is only about 60% water, so the dough rolls easily and bakes flakier.

A Long Island iced tea contains no tea, and its five spirits give it roughly what alcohol concentration?

With vodka, gin, rum, tequila and triple sec and very little mixer, a Long Island iced tea runs to about 22 percent alcohol; the splash of cola only supplies the amber colour of iced tea.

Vodka, cranberry and pineapple juice — pineapple replacing a better-known highball's grapefruit — is served as what?

The bay breeze swaps the sea breeze's grapefruit juice for pineapple; the whole family descends from Ocean Spray's 1945 Red Devil, later the Cape Codder, invented to sell cranberry juice as a mixer.

The lemon drop was invented in the 1970s at Henry Africa's, a fern bar in which city?

Norman Jay Hobday opened Henry Africa's on San Francisco's Russian Hill in 1969; the drink was probably named after lemon drop candy and later became a 1990s shooter.

In which city did J. A. Baczewski open Poland's first industrial vodka distillery in 1782?

J. A. Baczewski's distillery in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) opened in 1782; Jakub Haberfeld followed at Oświęcim in 1804, and Hartwig Kantorowicz began making Wyborowa in Poznań in 1823.

How many working spirits distilleries did the Polish city of Poznań have in 1580?

Poznań counted 498 working spirits distilleries in 1580; Kraków had been exporting spirits to Silesia before 1550, and Gdańsk soon surpassed both cities.

What is the Polish name for home-made vodka-based spirits infused with fruit, roots, flowers or herbs?

Nalewka is made by steeping fruit, roots, flowers or herbs in vodka or spirit, often with sugar, for weeks or months; the Ukrainian equivalent is nalyvka.