On Oct 14, 2011, at 4:42 PM, Nick Andrews wrote: > Hi Ray, > > How about vodka? There are a couple made in of all places, Texas, > that are quite good. Tito's, with the cheesy copper-colored cap is as > good as Stoli. And there's, but I can't recall the name. I think it > is something River with a frog on the label.
Tito's Handmade Vodka. Only pot still vodka made on the planet, from Austin, Texas. Very crisp and clean. I like it a great deal. Vodka is difficult. First, you judge it on "heat" rather than flavor. Really fine vodka is smooth and leaves no "burn" on the tongue. Most people don't care because most people use it in mixed drinks, but on the rocks with a squeeze of lime is my choice. At the bottom you have pain remover, and in the middle a huge range of pretty interchangeable stuff. You can't do a blind tasting and tell Belvedere, Stolichnaya, Grey Goose, or Russian Standard. They're all going to be pretty much the same, nice. In the really high end, you have a few that are smooth and tangy without any heat, like Ciriq, Cavali, and Imperia. What a lot of vodka distillers now are doing are a huge number of flavored (infused) vodkas, everything from orange to pepper, wheatgrass, green tea, or anything else they can dream up. One particularly good one is a Napa CA distiller Charvres which has a Blood Orange (large, dark fruit Mexican oranges for those of you far from Southern California) which is very tasty. You're also seeing open peat stilled, very scotch like, from a couple of producers, Effen in Holland being the first I tried. The best thing about Vodka is you can find some very reasonably priced good Vodkas, like YES! Crater Lake, and others. Best, R.E.F. ----- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
