While TiVo-ing through the Daily Show with Jon Stewart this evening, I stopped to watch an ad for Abolsut Vodka. (It is posted below for your viewing enjoyment.) It is a clever bit of advertising, but before you rush out and purchase a bottle, I suggest you review this now four year-old article entitled "A Humble Old Label ices its Rivals." In a blind taste test (which is one of my favorite unlearning tactics), a humble $13 bottle of Smirnoff smoked the competition, including the likes of Grey Goose and Ketel One.
As further evidence of the silliness of spending $20-$50 more per bottle for a fancy Polish, Russian or Finnish vodka in a sleek and well-designed bottle, it is worth recalling that by definition vodka is defined as a "neutral spirit, so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or some other material as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color." In other words, all vodkas, by definition, should taste the same!
If this still isn't enough for you, consider this: almost every vodka producer buys its neutral spirits (which have already been distilled from grain) from companies such as Archer Daniels Midland.
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