Vodka Day is a great time to raise your glasses to one of the world’s favourite alcoholic drinks. While vodka is often associated with Russia, and some of the finest and most expensive vodkas in the world come from there, it is a drink that is produced in many countries and enjoyed all over the world. Vodka is the Slavic word for ‘little water’ and is traditionally made by mixing water with distilled grains or potatoes. Today many popular brands add flavourings such as fruits and sugars.
Purists drink vodka neat, but it makes the perfect mixer and is the main ingredient in many favourite cocktails, including the martini, the screwdriver and the Bloody Mary.
Vodka Day is a great opportunity to enjoy a new cocktail or try one of the hundreds of different brands of vodka. Many bars and restaurants hold special promotions and tastings to encourage drinkers to celebrate this well-loved spirit.
Vodka is a distilled beverage composed primarily of water and ethanol, sometimes with traces of impurities and flavorings.
Vodka is made by the distillation of fermented substances such as grains, potatoes, or sometimes fruits or sugar. Vodka is carbon filtered, which makes it one of the purest drinks in the world!
- While traditional vodka has exactly 38 percent alcohol, the European Union recognizes any such drink with more than 37.5 percent alcohol content as vodka. On the other hand, all vodka sold in the United States has to have 40 percent or more alcohol content.
- Due to the high production and consumption of vodka in America, countries like Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, all Nordic and Baltic countries, Poland and areas of Slovakia and Hungary, these regions constitute the Vodka Belt.
- While this drink is normally associated with Russian culture, the first version was actually brought to Russia by Italians early in the 15th century.
- The first variations of Russian vodka were meant for medicinal purposes. It is also reported that Polish vodka was scented and used as aftershave!
- According to some historic accounts, vodka was used to make gunpowder in Sweden in the 15th century!
Sources:
