• Tired of adverts on RWI? - Subscribe by clicking HERE and PMing Trailboss for instructions and they will magically go away!

The best Vodka money can buy....

CocoaPebbles

Breakfast cereal aficionado
Certified
7/12/21
36
24
8
EU
I do find a lot of very industrial suggestions in this thread, so here are a few names off the beaten paths - most are from Poland :
- Purity vodka : a Swedish vodka that is very clean and crisp, usually popular with "modern" vodka drinkers (very distilled and filtered, hence the name)
- Polugar : the opposite, it's made in a "vintage" style by Russians in Poland since it's hard to make non-wheat vodka in Russia since the late 19th century; I recommend their "Rye&Wheat" (N°1) if you like "flavorful" white vodkas ; they also have Rye vodkas to go back in time to the 18th century
- Kavka vodka : in between these two, a vodka with a twist with little filtration and a drop of prune/apple eau-de-vie to add a little roundness like in the good old days
If you want to go crazy with weird yet traditional vodkas, there is also Vestal, a potato vodka that used to have "potato vintages and terroirs" variants that were really quite strong and "interesting" (ie absolutely not to my taste), I think they have a bit more mainstream offers now so worth a look...

For flavored vodkas, the choices are more industrial and sweet'n sugary but in the same vein as the Zubrowka, you have :
- Nemiroff, the Ukrainian brand, which has a popular Honey & Pepper variant
- Zoladkowa Gorzka, the Polish digestif, which has a popular "Traditional" flavor with herbs, spices & bitter orange ; they also have a surprising black pepper variant that's not that bad

I have more in stock if need be (and know much more about spirits than watches actually :) ) Cheers !
 

CocoaPebbles

Breakfast cereal aficionado
Certified
7/12/21
36
24
8
EU
Chase is British, potato based vodka set up by the a same potato farmer that set up then exited Tyrell’s crisps.
Stoli is Latvian (supposedly) but actually Russian.
Stolichnaya is actually both :
The brand was bought for cheap after the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 90s by an opportunist/entrepreneur/oligarch through a company called SPI and originally settled in Cyprus if my memory is correct, it is now based in Luxembourg.
It was bought so cheap (and in such shady circumstances imho) that the Russian government realized the sale was a sham and tried to wrestle the brand back from around 2000. It succeeded in Russia (of course) and failed elsewhere although I think the brand is still disputed in many countries.

Since then there is a Russian Stolichnaya brand in Russia and an "International" Stolichnaya brand in the rest of the world (except a few countries). It could have been settled when Pernod Ricard took over the international distribution of the brand and could have negociated with Russia but it chose to buy Absolut instead and Stolichnaya was left to its current fate.

Funnily enough, there have been several boycotts in the past years aimed at Stolichnaya to protest against the Russian government with absolutely zero impact since the brand that suffers in these cases is the International one (although they do have a plant in Tambov, Russia that ships to Latvia).
They decided to rebrand to "Stoli" in most markets to try and solve that issue...
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: acesgerrard

CocoaPebbles

Breakfast cereal aficionado
Certified
7/12/21
36
24
8
EU
Chase is British, potato based vodka set up by the a same potato farmer that set up then exited Tyrell’s crisps.
Stoli is Latvian (supposedly) but actually Russian.
Chase Rhubarb is a quite good flavored vodka - not overly sweet like many