Vodka – A Versatile Spirit

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Vodka traces its origins to the eastern region of Europe. Russia as well as Poland claim to be the first producers of vodka. The word vodka stems from voda or woda which means water in both the countries. The physical appearance of the drink may have been the reason why it was called water, or probably because it was drunk with such ease and it was almost as common as water.

Vodka is now popular around the world but it took a long while for the drink to reach the rest of the world. The spirit can be produced from a variety of agricultural materials. In the EU, vodka is mainly produced from grain or molasses while potatoes and rice are usually used for the production of vodka in Eastern European countries.

History

Distilleries at Khylnovsk that bear evidence of the first production of vodka date back to the 12^th century although the first documented production in Russia was around the end of the 9^th century. Assertions from Poland date back the history of the drink to the 8^th century but the first Polish vodkas emerged during the 11^th century.

The use of distilled liquor during the middle ages was primarily for medicinal purposes and for the production of gunpowder. Russia produced various qualities of vodka starting from plain to high quality. With the crude production methods used in the vodka distilleries, the drink often had impurities which were masked by the distillers by flavouring it with fruits, herbs and spices.

During the 18^th century, a professor in St. Petersburg used charcoal filtration to purify the spirit. The awareness of vodka spread across many parts of Europe and production methods continued to improvise. The increasing popularity of vodka escalated the production of the spirit.

Towards the end of the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks seized all private distilleries that operated in Moscow. Emigration of the population led to many Russian vodka makers taking their recipes and skills to new places.

One of those emigrants began production in Paris under the French version of his family name – Smirnoff. The distiller did not meet with much success in the beginning, but soon he collaborated with a Russian émigré from the USA. They set up a distillery in 1934 and the vodka produced from this distillery was sold to a US drinks company.

This is how vodka was introduced to the western world and today it is considered as one of the most versatile spirits. The ability of vodka to mix easily with a variety of drinks is the reason why you will find it in the shelves of all the pubs and bars around the world.

Top Vodka Producing Countries

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