In our Style Take a look at collection, BA editors conduct blind comparisons to find the very best grocery store staples (like vanilla ice cream or frozen pizza). Right now, which vodka do you have to seize off the shelf?
A very good vodka is difficult to search out. Certain, in one thing like Penne alla Vodka (and even in Soiled Martini Rooster) any outdated vodka will do, because you probably gained’t style its taste, even because it enhances the aroma and flavors of your sauce. However within the vodka cocktails you realize and love—your Moscow Mules, your Cosmos, your Poo Drivers—discovering the proper spirit is the distinction between after-work nirvana and grimace-inducing jet gasoline.
As cocktail author and The Encyclopedia of Cocktails writer Robert Simonson explains, vodka is not made completely with potatoes, because it was many years in the past. “Vodka could be constructed from something,” he says. “Because it turned extra well-liked, it was simply made with no matter was accessible.” Meaning all the things from wheat to beets to rye to rice could be changed into vodka today. These core components are mixed with water and fermented with yeasts for one to 2 weeks. Then, after the fermentation course of, vodka is distilled.
That final step is necessary. Many vodkas promote that they’ve been distilled a number of instances. The rationale why, Simonson explains is as a result of extra distillation ends in a smoother, extra impartial taste, which is what appeals to the common client. Fewer distillations imply the vodka retains extra of the character from the fabric used to make it—the grains, beets, what have you ever—although it’s admittedly extra intense to drink and trickier to combine into cocktails.
The most effective vodka must be a chameleon: adequately subtle to show into drinks (howdy, Bloody Mary) however self-sufficient sufficient to pour over ice and name it a day. That’s what we got down to discover on this month’s style take a look at.
How we arrange our blind style take a look at
Vodka ought to begin out colder than hell frozen over, irrespective of the way you’re having fun with it. We froze our 11 bottles till they had been frosty. Vodka is blissful to dwell in your freezer indefinitely; its freezing level (about -16°F) is under the temperatures of most freezers (normally round 0°F). We tasted a sip of every chilled vodka straight up, adopted by a sip of a martini made with the identical vodka for a complete of twenty-two (!) tastes. Admittedly, that’s numerous vodka to drink in the course of the work day, however all of us made it out alive, principally.
For our martini recipe, we turned to cocktail connoisseur and all-around-mensch Stanley Tucci. Stanley, who I’d prefer to suppose I am on a first-name foundation with, prefers an extra-dry martini; that’s, with vermouth stirred into ice in a beaker, then discarded (also referred to as a wash). However to tell apart our martini farther from the straight vodka tasting, we stored the vermouth. Forgive us, Stanley! It was for science!
How we picked the merchandise
There are a whole lot of manufacturers of vodka on the market—from craft-made to ultra-rare particular editions, to candy-flavored varieties. We stayed away from these and as a substitute checked out the most well-liked vodka manufacturers throughout the US primarily based on gross sales information. We additionally put a name out to the Bon Appétit employees asking their most well-liked vodkas. After distilling (pun!) all this info, we narrowed all the way down to 11 picks. This style take a look at covers the vodkas you’ll discover in most liquor shops and bars, so you possibly can select the very best bottle in any setting—out of your native dive to a glitzy cocktail spot to your individual bar cart at house.
How our editors evaluated
In some style exams, like mac and cheese or boxed brownies, the distinction between contenders is apparent earlier than we even take a chunk. This was not the case with vodka. Every glass was crammed with the identical clear liquid, so we needed to zero in on taste right here. After we requested our style testers what they wished in a vodka, they threw out phrases like “easy,” “impartial,” and “one thing that doesn’t style like battery acid.” To us, the perfect vodka falls someplace between silky and tasteless, and intense and flavorful. We wished to have the ability to detect a number of delicate flavors—natural, floral, malty, or anything, for that matter—with a peppery, boozy end.
