Ah. So it’s basically homeopathy.
Yeah, being proud of your vodka choice is sad on a lot of levels.
As part of an MBA project I discovered that a now-defunct “premium” vodka actually did not even have a distillery. They bought the purest grade ethanol from an ethanol plant and watered it down to the appropriate proof.
I always wanted to copy that business model but I also enjoy sleeping at night.
I knew there was something about you I liked! But I’d throw good single malt Scotch into the mix as well.
Tito’s is pretty good, I’ll admit, and reasonably cheap to boot.
It is a brilliant business plan. I always wanted to do it to ever since I worked in research labs and realized that lab grade ETOH and distilled water are both cheap and about as pure as you can get. Both are readily available in large quantities in most biological labs. Mix them together in the right proportions and you have the best vodka available for a total cost of just a couple of dollars per bottle at most.
I wouldn’t feel bad about selling selling a premium vodka made from readily available lab ingredients. Anyone that has any sense knows that is all vodka is. Put it in a cool bottle, start the marketing campaign and hire scantily clad women to give out free shots at the poshest clubs and watch the money roll in. That is what the rest of the premium vodka makers do except you can make a lot more if you skip running your own distillery.
Conversely, I usually sterilize thermometers by pouring some vodka over them.
I agree, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
In fact I’d probably buy it if the marketing was “Look, we know what’s in Vodka. We’re using premium lab quality ingredients and delivering a top quality vodka for 1/2 the price.”
“Where I come from laddie, that’s soda pop.”
Nah. Dripping Springs is also hand-made in Austin TX and lacks the Tito’s over-hyped marketing strategy.
This is, in fact, what Tito’s does. Sure, they have a couple of small pot stills that they run some of their already pure industrial ethanol through so that they can legally say that their vodka was pot-distilled in Texas, but that’s it.
Three percent is quite a bit, when you’re talking about flavoring compounds, though IIUC, “unflavored” vodka in the US is limited to citric acid and sugar (including glycerine). Not only that, but the vodka industry has managed to get the allowance for citric acid increased by arguing that it doesn’t produce a “distinctive” flavor. The previous standard (around 1%, I think) was set by testing the level of added acid at which a consumer could distinguish it in a blind test from a pure EtOH–water solution. The current standard is based on the level of added acid at which consumers will answer “yes,” to the question “Does this vodka possess a distinctive character, aroma or taste?”