Vodka Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
This vodka trivia quiz has 67 free questions with answers and covers the world's most-consumed spirit from every angle. It starts with the basics (what the word means, why the standard is 40%, which countries make up the vodka belt) and the long argument between Poland and Russia about who invented it, from a 1405 Polish court record to a Genoese delegation carrying aqua vitae to Moscow in 1386. From there it moves to the brands and the marketing that built them: how Smirnoff was sold to whiskey-drinking Americans, why Absolut paid Andy Warhol, who created Grey Goose in France, the Pepsi-for-Stolichnaya barter deal of 1972, the EU 'vodka war' over grape vodka, Dan Aykroyd's skull bottle and the Mendeleev myth. The cocktail rounds cover the Moscow mule, Bloody Mary, Caesar, screwdriver, Harvey Wallbanger, White Russian, cosmopolitan, espresso martini and James Bond's Vesper, plus penne alla vodka and the flakier pie crust. Roughly a third of the questions are easy enough for anyone who has ordered a vodka tonic, a third need a decent bar education, and the rest are for people who read the back of the bottle. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and brand histories, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 67 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'vodka' was borrowed into English from Russian and literally translates as what?
Little water
'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'.
Q 02Standard vodka is bottled at what percentage of alcohol by volume?
40%
40% is the usual bottling strength, or 80 proof in America, where the number is simply double the percentage; US rules make it the legal floor for vodka, while EU rules allow as little as 37.5%.
Q 03Sex on the Beach blends vodka and two fruit juices with which liqueur?
Peach schnapps
Peach schnapps is the liqueur in the official IBA recipe, built over ice with vodka and two juices; leave out the citrus one and bartenders call the result a woo woo.
Q 04Before creating Grey Goose, importer Sidney Frank built his business on which liqueur?
Jägermeister
Jägermeister was a staid German digestif when Frank secured the US import rights in the 1970s; in the 1980s he pushed it to students as a party drink.
Q 05Travellers from which Italian city are said to have carried aqua vitae to Moscow in the late 1300s?
Genoa
Genoa: its travellers are said to have brought the spirit with them, and Russian monks later turned the craft of distilling to grain, the first step towards vodka.
Q 06Which grandfather of Ivan the Terrible set up Russia's first state vodka monopoly?
Ivan III
Ivan III saw vodka as a way to fill the treasury, and his monopoly opened five centuries of tug-of-war between the state and its drinkers over price and supply.
Q 07In Russia, vodka is traditionally downed alongside zakuski, a word for what?
Small snacks
Small snacks: zakuski, from a verb meaning to have a bite, are pickles, cured fish and cold cuts, each mouthful meant to follow a shot of vodka.
Q 08Which of these countries lies in Europe's vodka belt?
Belarus
Belarus sits in the vodka belt with Russia and the Baltic and Nordic states, where vines are hard to grow; Czechs favour beer, and Croatia and Romania lie in the wine belt.
Q 09Under US regulations, which of these is forbidden for a spirit labelled as vodka?
Aging it in wood
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.
Q 10Which French liqueur joins vodka and pineapple juice in a French martini?
Chambord
Chambord, a black raspberry liqueur, is what makes the drink French; it is not a true martini at all, just one of many cocktails that borrowed the name.
Q 11Absolut Vodka is produced in only one place, Åhus, in which country?
Sweden
Sweden: the brand's admen modelled the bottle on an old apothecary flask and printed the text straight on the glass, even though American market tests came back against so plain a bottle.
Q 12Who sold Absolut to Pernod Ricard for €5.63 billion in 2008?
A national government
A national government: the vodka belonged to Vin & Sprit, founded in 1917 as an alcohol monopoly, which had created the brand in the late 1970s purely as an export product.
Q 13Which artist's painting of the Absolut bottle for its US importer launched the brand's long art campaign?
Andy Warhol
Q 21The version of Stolichnaya sold outside Russia is made in which country?
Latvia
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.
Q 22Pyotr Smirnov's Moscow distillery, founded in 1864, pioneered which production technique in the 1870s?
Charcoal filtration
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.
Q 23Which slogan did Heublein use to sell Smirnoff as 'white whiskey' after buying the US rights?
No taste, no smell
Andy Warhol painted the bottle in the mid-1980s and then recommended artists to follow him, Keith Haring among them; hundreds more were commissioned after that.
Q 14Which two brands joined Absolut in the American Marketing Association's Hall of Fame in 1992?
Coca-Cola and Nike
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.
Q 15Grey Goose, created in the 1990s by an American importer, is made in which country?
France
France was importer Sidney Frank's choice for its culinary prestige; he hired a cognac maker, François Thibault, to develop the recipe, and the wheat comes from Picardy.
Q 16Which company bought Grey Goose in 2004 for a reported US$2.2 billion?
Bacardi
Bacardi paid the reported US$2.2 billion because Grey Goose, invented by Sidney Frank only seven years earlier, had already become America's best-selling premium vodka.
Q 17The honey deuce, a Grey Goose vodka cocktail, is the signature drink of which tennis Grand Slam?
The US Open
The US Open's signature cocktail is vodka, lemonade and raspberry liqueur, topped with a skewer of honeydew melon balls cut to look like tennis balls.
Q 18The name Stolichnaya is the adjectival form of a Russian word meaning what?
Capital city
Stolichnaya means 'of the capital' (stolitsa is Russian for capital city); the old label showed the Hotel Moskva, a Moscow landmark, to match.
Q 19Which American company bartered its product for Western rights to Stolichnaya in 1972?
PepsiCo
PepsiCo took its payment in Stolichnaya because roubles could not be taken out of the Soviet Union; the deal made Pepsi the first American consumer product made and sold there.
Q 20Ketel One vodka is named after the Nolet family's original what?
A pot still
A pot still: Distilleerketel No. 1, the family's original still, gave its name to a vodka launched only in 1983, by the tenth generation of a firm distilling since 1691.
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.
Q 24Smirnoff, the world's best-selling vodka in 2014, is owned by Diageo, a company based in which country?
Britain
Britain: Diageo is based in London. The founder's son rebuilt the brand abroad after fleeing the Russian Revolution, which is how a Moscow vodka came to be British-owned.
Q 25In the US, Smirnoff Ice is unusual for a Smirnoff product because it contains what?
No vodka at all
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.
Q 26A Moscow mule (vodka, ginger beer, lime) is traditionally served in a mug made of what?
Copper
Copper mugs became the drink's trademark after Heublein's John Martin toured American bars photographing bartenders with one beside a bottle of Smirnoff, then showed the prints to the next bar.
Q 27In 2022 some American and Canadian bars renamed the Moscow mule after which other city?
Kyiv
Kyiv: bars made the switch in protest at Russia's invasion of Ukraine, though the drink was never Russian, having been devised in 1940s America to sell Smirnoff and ginger beer.
Q 28Bartender Fernand Petiot claimed to have invented the Bloody Mary in 1921 at which Paris bar?
Harry's New York Bar
Harry's New York Bar began as a Manhattan saloon that was dismantled and shipped to Paris in 1911; it also claims the White Lady and the Sidecar.
Q 29Chopin, the Polish vodka named after the composer, is best known for a spirit distilled from which crop?
Potatoes
Potatoes: the maker says about three kilograms go into every bottle, although most vodka today is distilled from grain.
Q 30Which sauce seasons a classic Bloody Mary alongside Tabasco and celery salt?
Worcestershire sauce
Worcestershire sauce gets two dashes in the IBA recipe; bartender Fernand Petiot said the drink was only vodka and tomato juice until he added it with salt, pepper and lemon.