Grey Goose Vodka

[SinbadtheSailor]

Stolichnaya Elite is very good, however I think Wolfschmidt Vodka will forever be my favorite.

 

[Celotil]

Unfortunately the few liquor stores around where I live tend to just stock popular brands, and I sure as **** won't order anything glass through the post, so I've only tried a few vodka brands.

Beats the hell out of me why Smirnoff keeps being popular. Put a bottle of that stuff in your freezer for two weeks. About one-third of the bottle will turn to ice, guaranteed.

Stolichnaya on the other hand just gets colder, and a tiny bit syrupy, the longer you leave it in there - only tried red label unfortunately.

I've seen Grey Goose in Harry Brown's, in Booval, but I haven't tried it yet simply because something about the bottle puts me off, maybe it was merely the placement near some other vodkas that I've heard aren't so crash hot.

Effen isn't too bad - wheat-based vodka from Holland - and it sounds slightly belligerent when someone asks you what you're drinking and you answer, "Effen vodka."

Regardless, just make sure that there's no preservatives. Clear, light spirits like Vodka or Gin shouldn't give you a headache, unless you don't hydrate enough. They're an ethanol-based alcohol, almost pure sugars, and at my age its only the preservatives in clear spirits that give me a headache - if I make the mistake of drinking spirits with preservatives in them.

Well-made dark spirits without preservatives will give you a headache even if you do hydrate 1:1 simply because they're methanol-based, and a tiny amount of formaldehyde is created when dark liquors are broken down by the body, actually poisoning you a little bit - but don't drink too much scotch, and you'll recover okay.

 

[StopPolloition]

Originally Posted by Celotil

Well-made dark spirits without preservatives will give you a headache even if you do hydrate 1:1 simply because they're methanol-based, and a tiny amount of formaldehyde is created when dark liquors are broken down by the body, actually poisoning you a little bit - but don't drink too much scotch, and you'll recover okay.

Sir,
Whisky is not methanol based. When they distill it, the head of the distillate is discarded reducing the methanol content to a negligible amount. Also the tails are discarded to waste other impurities IIRC. Methanol can cause permanent blindness at 5-10ml of consumption. Unless by well-made dark spirits you are referring to antifreeze, I don't think this information is quite correct. The headaches might be from other things such as congeners that are more prevalent in dark liquors, but I don't think this includes formaldehyde either.

 

[Huntsman]

Originally Posted by Celotil

Regardless, just make sure that there's no preservatives. Clear, light spirits like Vodka or Gin shouldn't give you a headache, unless you don't hydrate enough. They're an ethanol-based alcohol, almost pure sugars, and at my age its only the preservatives in clear spirits that give me a headache - if I make the mistake of drinking spirits with preservatives in them. Well-made dark spirits without preservatives will give you a headache even if you do hydrate 1:1 simply because they're methanol-based, and a tiny amount of formaldehyde is created when dark liquors are broken down by the body, actually poisoning you a little bit - but don't drink too much scotch, and you'll recover okay.
Celotil, you are seriously misinformed. There's no difference in the base alcohols of the clear vs. the dark spirits -- both are ethanol, and both are produced by the same process of fermentation of sugars into alcohol by yeasts. BOTH will likely contain trace amounts of methanol and the other alcohols as a function of the 'cut' which is what SP below refers to -- that collection of the middle portion of the still run between the so-called 'head' (the higher and more volatile compounds) and the 'tail' (the lower compounds and oils). The main difference between the light and the dark spirits is that dark spirits are aged in wood, and the color comes from either the charred wood or the compounds in the wood from a barrel's prior occupants (such as sherry). What comes off the still -- no matter its final color when you drink it is typically clear. Case in point: Ciroc vodka (clear) is made from grapes as is brandy (dark). If you took Ciroc and aged it in barrels it would be dark too. Your comment about preservatives intrigues me, but I am dubious because of how incorrect some of your other comments are. Can you name any of the compounds used, and why you need to add any preservatives to a bottle of alcohol? I am also dubious about the validity of the freezer test: I would expect a mixture of pure ethanol and water to separate in the freezer; whereas a mixture containing other contaminants (not in the pejorative sense) would be more likely to remain homogeneous and not freeze. This is consistent, to my mind, with Smirnoff red freezing -- it is highly distilled and rectified, probably quite 'pure' -- whereas I would expect a 'better' imported vodka to contain more contaminating flavor components and therefore, not freeze. Presumably we are comparing spirits of the same proof?

Originally Posted by StopPolloition

Sir, Whisky is not methanol based. When they distill it, the head of the distillate is discarded reducing the methanol content to a negligible amount. Also the tails are discarded to waste other impurities IIRC. Methanol can cause permanent blindness at 5-10ml of consumption. Unless by well-made dark spirits you are referring to antifreeze, I don't think this information is quite correct. The headaches might be from other things such as congeners that are more prevalent in dark liquors, but I don't think this includes formaldehyde either.
Quite so. ~ H

 

[KJT]

Originally Posted by The Wayfarer

The Smith & Wol's in my city ran into some pretty serious issues regarding premium vodka about a year ago. As it seems, management was filling the top shelf bottles with well liquor and still charging $12 a pour. They got away with it for a long time until someone in accounting took notice and saw there was a huge imbalance between what they were investing into premium liquor and how much profit they were receiving from it. To make a long story short, as soon as the media caught wind of the story, management passed the blame onto the bar staff and fired them all.

Figured this anecdote would relate to the topic, as no one noticed the difference in quality.

We used to do this at my house in college. Girls were always in awe that we always had a magnum of "goose" behind the bar. It was really $8.99 a handle Poland Springs vodka put through the brita once or twice.

 

[Celotil]

My apologies to StopPolloition, Huntsman, and the other readers of this forum.

I had a search around for methanol, whiskey, and so forth, on Google and it seems that my source must have been confused about where the dark colour of whiskey, bourbon, and scotch came from, and the presence of methanol in badly distilled liquors.

As for the bit about preservatives, I found this interesting list of preservatives from 200 to 290 - http://www.mbm.net.au/health/200-290.htm. Interestingly enough, several of the preservatives are flat out banned in AU, so I guess my headaches caused by cheap beers is just a mild taste of some of the junk other people have to put up with.

This other page - http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/470770 - has an interesting discussion about the nature of beer and added preservatives - although it's obvious now, I'd never thought of alcohol as a preservative in itself.

Here's a good page - http://www.allergycapital.com.au/Pages/alcoholGP.html - detailing the processes leading to the use of preservatives, eggs and milk, in the production of wine.

After further reading it looks like there's a real mixed bag of opinion about preservatives in alcohol. The general consensus seems to be that beer shouldn't have them, wines sometimes need them, and I seem to be having trouble finding information about preservatives in spirits, like whiskey, bourbon, gin, and vodka, so either there isn't and my less than scientific methods of study lead me on an erroneous path of opinion, or I'm going to have to wade through pages of results about wood varnishes before I find them.

*shrug*

Live and learn.

 

[Celotil]

Damn it. Safari told me the page timed out, server dropped connection. Sorry for the double post.

 

[Girardian]

Have we had a poll on vodkas? Actually ... scratch that.

For those here who have done side by side comparisons or who have taken careful notes on vodka what are some of your favorites? Specifically, why do you prefer them over other vodkas?

I'm not a fan of Ketel One. I do enjoy Absolut. I have tried and have opinions on the other usual "premium" subjects (GG, Chopain, Belv.), but have not had others.

Vodkas I have not tried include Russian Standard, Stolichnaya Elite or Black (I looked but have not found either), Ciroc, and others.

I take my vodka primarily in martinis (either vodka or gin and vodka martinis ... and yes I also drink gin martinis and yes all my martinis do have vermouth, most often Vya), occasionally neat, and also in cocktails.