Vodka

[esbesb]

I am a lawyer. Do you remember Stolichnaya Cristall? Ever wonder what happened to it?

About 10 years ago, I was hired by a Russian distillery named Moscow Distillery Cristall. PepsiCo was then importing Stoli Cristall and we sued them, claiming rights to the Cristall mark. It was 2+ years of litigation, and at the end of the day, the jury gave our distillery the right to the Cristall mark and a few hundred grand to boot. So, Pepsi had to change the name to Stoli Gold and our distillery got another importer, and I lost track of what happened after all the litigation was over.

This was in the days before you saw dozens of different vodka brands.

Anyway, had an opportunity to go to the distillery in Moscow, meet the inventor of the vodka and the head of the distillery a number of times and learn all about vodka and how it's made. And El D. is right. Good vodka is an absence of taste. If you are tasting vodka (other than the alcohol taste, of course) you are tasting impurities.

So, as between high quality vodkas, one should basically not be able to tell the difference.