What ingredients are responsible for making vodkas good or bad?

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: PolymerTim

Originally posted by: sjwaste
I can vouch for the effectiveness. We took a handle of Skol, which is probably the best vodka that still comes in a plastic jug, so we had a decent starting point. It's actually scored well on some blind taste tests against premium brands, but thats neither here nor there. We filtered it through a Brita and tasted after each. After about 3 times through, it wasn't getting any better, and it really did go down really, really smooth.

So we repeated with a handle of Aristocrat, arguably the worst that comes in a plastic jug. After about 5 times through, it was almost as good as the Skol. We think that if we switched filters to a new one and did it a couple more times, it would've been better. But at that point, we just wanted to drink the stuff

I like this technique. I guess now the big question is which costs more money: the filters or the expensive vodka?

The filter was about $10 at CVS, and $15 for the handle of Skol. 1.75L of something like Grey Goose goes for a lot more than $25, so we definitely got value out of it. If you start with something like Skol, which isn't completely horrid for a plastic jug, you'll end up with something pretty flavorless, on par with higher end vodkas. Definitely worth trying at least once.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: NeoPTLD
Well, I boiled down some nasty vodka in a glass pan (Corelle Vision), and most of the water. It left behind a very thick, honey like sticky crap that tastes sour.
It only took around 20 minutes, so this defies bacteria production of vinegar theory.

I'll repeat it with Smirnoff and Grey Goose later.

Perhaps someone can try boiling off the alcohol from filtered and unfiltered and taste the remaining water. The taste difference will be much much more clear.

This is pretty interesting, but it's possible that some "bad stuff" evaporates as well, at a lower or very similar temp than ethanol. Usually when distilling spirits, the first batch of condensate is thrown away. Presumably, cheaper, less careful distillation would retain more of this stuff, whatever it is.

We need someone with a mass spectrometer...

 

[stevf]

that stuff is fusil oil - it is really different alcohols and can be removed by more/better distilling. it is the stuff that coats/makes tails on the inside ofyour glass and is in greater concentrations in whiskys compared to vodka. it is in heavier concentrations at the end of distillation so that is probably why the cheap stuff has more - they probably use more of the leftovers compared to the good stuff