History of Vodka

Explore the History of Vodka

THE GREAT ORIGIN DEBATE IS WHETHER POLAND OR RUSSIA FIRST MADE VODKA. AS NEUTRAL SPIRIT HAD BEEN MADE FOR TWO AND A HALF CENTURIES IN EUROPE, THE REAL QUESTION IS WHO HAS NAMING RIGHTS. THAT WAS SOLVED WHEN THE POLISH CALLED THEIRS WÓDKA AND RUSSIANS WENT FOR VODKA.

WORDS CHRIS MIDDLETON

THE HISTORY OF VODKA FROM THE 1500S also becomes a central part of the history of Russia. It was not until the first decade of the 16th century, vodka made its debut in Moscow. This is a country that remained both vodka obsessed and feudal until the 1917 Revolution. Of course vodka survived the Tsars and the communists who followed.

The Tsars, his retinue of nobles, merchants and administrators controlled just about everything, the land, production, to the sales of goods. From the 17th century, the Tsars monopolised vodka distilling and sales through Stateowned taverns. By this, 1600s vodka had become Russia’s favourite drink of social, ceremonial and recreational life. Tsar Alexis used the excuse of the widespread vodka abuse and drunkenness in 1652 to ban all distilleries and put the production of vodka under the State. This secured him a lucrative source of revenue to featherbed his empire and private indulgences. By the end of the 17th century, the word vodka had become common parlance for Russia’s distilled spirit. By the early 18th century, another Tsar was selling distilling concessions to raise more income. These vodka distilling rights were given to privileged nobles and sold to merchants, known by the whimsical term, tax farming. Vodka was Russia’s universal drink and generated half the State’s revenue from licenses and sales. Vodka funded the lavish lifestyles of the nobility and paid for Russia’s frequent wars. Peasant and Tsar seemed locked into a drunken dance of mutual intoxication.

We think of vodka as clear and nearflavourless spirit. This is 20th century vodka. Since the beginning vodka was coloured and flavoured to make it palatable, even a medicinal nostrum. This same flavouring phenomenon was happening to all white spirits, from Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands to England, Scotland and Ireland. It was not until the 19th century, when science and knowledge brought about profound changes to the quality of spirits that significant improvements were made in fermentation, distillation, filtration and cask maturation, shaping standards for the spirits we drink today.

If we stepped out of a carriage in Moscow in the 1780s to attend a princely dinner we would discover vodka was double distilled, possibly triple distilled and even quadruple distilled. This high proof vodka was diluted with water for drinking and fashionably flavoured with honey water. Our host would proudly present his estate distillery’s range of aromatised vodkas. Some nobility had hundreds of flavours: caraway, St John’s Wort, honey, wormwood, hops and juniper, acorn, birch bark, cherry, mint, pepper, anise, cloves, willow, blackcurrant, raspberry melon, bitters, lemon, cinnamon, aniseed, cumin, rose etc. These flavourings were used in vodka blending games, where the first initial of the flavoured vodkas formed a word and guests were challenged to play by taste. Our palates today would find most of these vodkas crude to taste, even when masked with sugar and flavourings.

One hundred years later, these aromatised vodkas were standardised for mass consumption. The leading flavours were cherry, raspberry and currant, sweetened with sugar. After Prohibition, production standards improved and greater product purity was achieved, unflavoured vodka became the norm.

Today, flavoured vodka represents only 5 per cent of global vodka sales. There are probably as many flavours sold today as Tsarist Russians once stocked. Western liquor store shelves contain hundreds of flavoured vodkas, ranging from the traditional additives such as raspberry and vanilla, to unusual, such as bacon, smoked salmon, hemp, peanuts to cut grass. ❧

OPPOSITE: View on Nevsky Prospect and Admiralty building in Saint Petersburg, Russia

ABOVE: Wódka, the Polish word for vodka

World of Vodka

“NOBODY IN THE WORLD KNOWS WHAT VODKA IS MADE OUT OF, AND THE REASON I TELL YOU THIS IS THAT IS THE STORY OF VODKA IS THE STORY OF RUSSIA” - WILL ROGERS, US COLUMNIST, 1924

WORDS CHRIS MIDDLETON

BELOW: Potatoes can be used as the raw material for making vodka IS IT NOT STRANGE THAT VODKA, A traditional spirit, synonymous with Eastern Europe and especially Russia, became the post-modern drink of the West? Since its introduction into the Western Hemisphere in the 1950s, it has become the second largest spirit category in Australia, largest in America and dominates global sales. More intriguing was that non-mainstream communities adopted vodka. In the West, when we looked for ‘reds under the bed’, commos were our greatest fear (other than public speaking) and all things Soviet viewed with deepest suspicion. Who could have predicted vodka became the drink de rigueur amongst youth, emergent gay communities, liberated women’s groups, even macho cohorts, as well as the spirit of choice for suave fictional characters like James Bond. This was quite the achievement to recruit patronage from such disparate and self-aware groups of free-thinking drinkers, all fearful of Soviet world domination.

We are also talking about a spirit that is tasteless, odourless, clear and usually 40 per cent ABV. The secret to vodka’s success was in how the major brands created exciting imagery and marketed this products purity. Vodka’s sensory appeal was its clean taste. It went with just about everything and anyone. Its purity connoted health and aspiration. Unscrupulous marketers even claimed purity would not produce headaches (all alcohol will, through excessive dehydration). Naked ethanol climbed to the top of the alcohol market and triumphed. What sweet irony.

Winston Churchill called Russia a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Never more true than vodka. It just keeps offering up new surprises. The modern flavoured vodka trend recycled the original way vodka was first made. Russian aristocrat distillers in the 18th century competed amongst themselves by compounding hundreds of flavoured vodkas to demonstrate their connoisseurship. Smirnoff’s popularity in Tsarist Russia was for his sweetened anise, cherry, cranberry, currants, raspberry vodkas. As they experimented with different flavour combinations, vodka distillers were also seeking greater purity, cleaner taste. They pioneered new filtration and clarification processes. They set the vodka quality standards on filtration, the number of distillations and minimum drinking strength (40 per cent ABV) in the late 19th century. They were indifferent to which raw materials were

used allowing grain, potatoes, sugar beet and other carbohydrates to be the distilled sources of alcohol.

July 1914, Russia also became the first country in the world to declare national Prohibition on distillation and sales. Restaurants were initially permitted to serve alcohol, after the 1917 Revolution they too stopped. Prohibition lasted until 1925.

Today, modern Russia again dominates vodka production and sales with over 4.4 billion litres. That’s legally distilled vodka; there’s a large illicit industry still making moonshine vodka. With vodka now firmly established in all western countries, should we be surprised regulations, production and quality standards vary around the world. In 2008, the EU required vodka not made from cereals or potatoes must label the carbohydrate used for the base spirit. The US has set rigid conditions on charcoal filtering, distillation proof and sale at not less than 40 per cent ABV. Australia, in the late 1960s, recognised vodka as a distinct spirit made from any carbohydrate and allowed it to be sold at the lower 37 per cent ABV whereas the EU said 37.5 per cent. Australian vodka can be made from grain, molasses, grape spirit, potatoes even dairy milk. ❧

Moonshine distilled liquid. There’s a large illicit industry still making moonshine vodka

Explore Vodka Production

VODKA IS ABOUT PURITY. PURITY MEANS GETTING AS CLOSE TO CLEAN ETHYL ALCOHOL WHILE STILL LEAVING A PLEASING CHARACTER IN THE VODKA. DON’T BE SURPRISED TO LEARN NO VODKA IS COMPLETELY TASTELESS OR ODOURLESS. THAT’S BECAUSE GOOD BRANDS HAVE BETTER FERMENTATIONS, DIFFERENT CARBOHYDRATES ARE FERMENTED, AND CONDUCT REPEATED DISTILLATIONS, THEN EMPLOY MULTIPLE FILTRATIONS TO REMOVE UNDESIRABLE CONGENERS AND FUSEL OILS. THESE QUALITY BRANDS BOTTLE VODKA THAT IS WHOLESOME AND OF HIGH PURITY. BUT EACH BRAND HAS A TINY BIT OF IT CHARACTER IMPLANTED IN THE VODKA.

AT THE DAWN OF RUSSIAN DISTILLING, vodka was very crudely made on primitive earthenware and wooden tub stills, using mainly rye, also oats, barley and buckwheat. These hardy cereals survived the harsh Russian climate and would later form part of the recipes each distillery mashed to make their house style of vodka. By the late 18th century, European copper pot stills were being imported by aristocratic families to distil their estate vodka distilleries, flavourings being essential for palatability. Any surplus production, by law, was sold to the Tsar at fixed prices. The official measurement of vodka was in buckets (around 13 litres) until 1895, after which litres were adopted and bottled vodka did not start until after 1885.

What differentiated vodka from other neutral white spirits made in Europe was Russia’s attention to filtration. This rectification process made the spirit cleaner and purer to the taste. Since the 16th century rectification used some crude methods to liberate the alcohol, such as freezing out the alcohol, filtering through woollen blankets, sand, and charcoal, as well as using coagulants like milk and egg white to filter out suspended particles. The big break-through came when Joseph Tobias Lowitz, a German chemist working at the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences undertook a systematic study of charcoal filtration in 1785. He studied the absorbency properties of dozens of woods on different substances, reporting the superior value of birch wood, alder and lime wood charcoal for vodka rectification. This was the turning point that would start to improve Russian vodka through the 19th century.

In 1826, Tsar Nicholas abolished the State monopoly (again, until another Tsar nationalised all distilleries 1904). Distilling licences could be purchased by free citizens and even foreigners who were not nobility. By 1860, only one Moscow distiller was Russian, the rest were French and German. It was during this time of imported technological advances in steam and semi-continuous distilling, French, German and English equipment began to arrive in Russia. The French had also made significant inroads into sugar beets and sugar beet distilling when the Napoleonic Wars blocked their West Indies colonies and sugarcane trade. Germany had no sugar cane colonies, encouraging them to pioneer potato distilling. Sugar beets and potato became cheap and reliable raw materials for distilling. These were subterranean vegetables, less prone to surface crop losses from frosts, floods, diseases and wars. The 19th century, saw grain harvests rebounded under improved cultivation practises, the introduction of mechanisation and a long run of good seasons. Russia was producing grain surpluses which they exported to Europe as a needy foreign exchange.

Peasants by 1860 represented over 80 per cent of the 60 million Russians. The following year, Tsar Nicholas II emancipated tens of millions of Russian serfs. The demand for vodka began to soar. With grain prices rising due to exports, cheaper production turned to the poor tasting potato and beets to meet the working class demand for cheap and plentiful vodka. Religion may have been the opium of the masses, Tsar needed vodka to keep the masses happy and sedated.

By the 1880s, new continuous distilling plant was introduced from Europe but proved impractical to meet Russia’s insatiable thirst for cheap vodka. The problem with the new stills was Russian rye; it is a difficult mash to handle due to the grain’s inherent stickiness. So too were beets and potatoes, both thick mashes that clogged the equipment. Russian engineers began designing plant to work specifically with these materials. By the 1890s, new continuous distillation plant and retorts were starting to make inroads into more highly rectified spirits.

Further advances in filtration and quality control were also improving standards and product quality. Sensory studies by Dimitri Mendeleyev in 1865, recommended vodka not be sold under 40 per cent ABV, which became law in 1894. New discoveries in filtration started to become regulated; controlling ratios of charcoal powder to pellets, depth of filtration columns, frequency of replacement, to the maximum age of birch wood for charcoal making.

Another Russian would invent activated carbon in 1907. When the Prohibition on distilling lifted in 1924, activate carbon filtration joined improvements in continuous distillation.

As cheap and plentiful vodka flooded Russian society, the incidences of drunkenness grew alarmingly high. By 1893, over 3.6 billion litres of vodka flooded across the country. The abuse of vodka had become internationally infamous. Australian newspapers reported the extent of Russian drunkenness was unparalleled to any other country. Articles described King Vodka as the new Russian Tyrant where ‘peasants drink vodka until they die’. To kerb consumption and gain control of the rich revenue stream vodka was producing 60 per cent of the State’s income, another Tsar Nicholas II nationalised all distilleries in 1904.

The announcement of the First World War was the excuse the Tsar needed to prevent excessive consumption. In July 1914, he declared a national prohibition on distilling, shutting down his private industry. The public sale of any alcohol he restricted to restaurants, where the bourgeoisie and aristocratic elite could afford to inhabit and quaff fine wines and toss down good vodka. The Russian people must have been distraught that they were excluded from their beloved vodka. In the middle of the Great War, the country imploded with the 1917 Russian Revolution. It proved to be two sequential revolutions, the February Revolution (held in March, as Russia was still on the old Julian calendar until 1918) and then the November Bolshevik Revolution. The country fell into turmoil. The Communists did keep prohibition.

The new USSR appeared in 1922 and three years later the prohibition on sales was abolished. Taking a leaf from the Tsars authoritarian rule, the new Soviet State took full control of Russian liquor production and sales. Distilling started in 1924 and began to incorporate new plant technology and filtration systems. Modern vodka was born, comrade.

The 1917 Revolution also sent many Russians and distillers into exile. The famous Smirnov family and at the time of Prohibition a leading vodka distillery in Moscow, selling 45 million bottles in 1896, saw some family members escape Russia. Vladimir Smirnoff (he changed the name to be French sounding version in 1923), followed other Russian émigrés to cities of a safe harbour. First, he moved to Istanbul in 1919, then Sophia, Bulgaria, eventually settling in Nice, France. In each city Vladimir licenced local distillers with the Smirnoff name and recipe to market vodka to exiled Russians and locals. In 1933, he met a Russian-American, Rudolph Kunnet whose family originated in Ukraine and had supplied the Smirnov Moscow distillery with grain. He sold the Smirnoff rights in the US to Kunnet. Two months after US prohibition had been repealed in 1933, Kunnet began making Smirnoff vodka in Bethel, Connecticut. Kunnet’s Smirnoff vodka was serving the Slavic immigrant communities around

Wheat fields ready for harvest. When distilled wheat brings out a softer taste in vodka the greater New York and tri-State area. By 1939, Smirnoff was selling 5,000 cases a year. After the Second World War, US vodka market had exploded to over 850,000 cases in 1953. Vodka was on a roll and Smirnoff was fast becoming the world’s most popular vodka.

The same story gets repeated in the UK, Canada, and Australia. To meet the increasing demand caused by east European immigrants, new large vodka distilleries were commissioned in Anglo markets during the early 1950s. Instead of Russian rye, Canada and the US used mainly corn and wheat, substituting local hardwoods and activated carbon for Russian materials. In Australia, we used a barley/wheat mix with activated carbon to make our vodkas and Smirnoff. Vodka became a truly international spirit, in both consumption and places of production.

SO WHY DO BRANDS OF VODKA TASTE SO DIFFERENT?

Raw materials play a big part. Potatoes, now astutely distilled in modern distilleries, offer the drinker a more voluptuous mouth feel. A peppery note is detectable in the rye vodka. Wheat brings out a softer taste. Each raw material leaves small but discernible character on its vodka. Then there are also the grain recipes. Russian rye distillers would add small quantities of flaked oats, buckwheat or cracked wheat, no more than 2 per cent of the mash bill to make their flavour profile. Different yeast strains can leave microscopic flavour traces from the esters and chemical compounds during fermentation. Then different still technologies and distilling techniques impart subtle character on the spirit. Finally, different filtering processes and materials imprint their finishing impression.

When vodka distillers talk about their secret recipes, it involved a combination of grains, including local varieties such as the Russian rusa rye, together with their house yeast. It could have been slow double or triple distilled in copper or stainless steel stills, or rectified through retorts. Or a highly rectified spirit produced to 95 per cent ABV purity in a continuous column still. Finally, different filtration methods using deep beds of hardwood charcoal, special quartz sand or activated carbon affects organoleptic of the final product. These production variables are as endless as the flavour nuances we can detect between vodkas.

So while all vodka should be odourless, clear and tasteless, each brand will show its subtle character to the attentive drinker.

WHITE WHISKEY: Sometimes marketing success happens by accident. Rudolph Kunnet, who began producing Smirnoff in America in 1934, was facing financial difficulties by 1939. He sold the Smirnoff rights and recipe for $14,000, plus 5 per cent royalties for five years to John Martin at Heublein of Hartford, Connecticut. When Heublein started production, they did not have enough Smirnoff caps, so they used some leftover caps identified as whiskey. Ten cases with these caps were shipped to Columbia, South Carolina. No sooner had the order been delivered than the distributor ordered another fifty cases, then five hundred. Intrigued by the leaping sales in Columbia, Martin called on the distributor. He discovered an enterprising salesman was selling Smirnoff as white whiskey – no smell, no taste. The locals were substituting Smirnoff with whiskey, mixing with milk, orange juice, cola and whatever took their fancy. ❧

Explore Vodka Cocktails

IN RUSSIA, VODKA RITUALS USUALLY MEAN SHOTS. VODKA IS A SOCIAL DRINK, SO THIS INVOLVES FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND FOOD. THE VODKA IS SERVED CHILLED, IN SMALL GLASSES. CHILLED VODKA WAS FORMALLY USED TO SUPPRESS UNPLEASANT CONGENERS, OR OFFENSIVE FLAVOURS FROM INFERIOR VODKA WHILE MAKING THE LIQUID FEEL RICHER AND MORE VISCOUS TO THE TASTE. AFTER A CELEBRATORY TOAST THE VODKA IS TOSSED DOWN, FOLLOWED BY FOOD. THIS BEHAVIOUR CAN BE REPEATED SEVERAL TIMES DURING THE MEAL. THE VODKA ACTS AS A DIGESTIVE TO THE RICH FOODS AND ENSURES GREATER CONVIVIALITY AMONGST THE GUESTS AT THE SHARED TABLE.

A traditional ritual in Russia is vodka shots

YEAR 1911 1920s

1935 1938 1938 1941 1949 1950s 1950s 1950s 1964 1971 1970s 1972 1987 1995 COCKTAIL RUSSIAN COCKTAIL VODKA MARTINI VODKA COLLINS VODKA QUEEN GYPSY QUEEN SCREWDRIVER MOSCOW MULE INGREDIENTS Vodka & rowanberry Prohibition, with vermouth Prohibition, lemon juice, sugar & soda Vodka, Benedictine & bitters Vodka, Benedictine, orange & lemon juice Vodka, orange juice & ice Vodka, ginger beer, lime juice (LA)

BLACK RUSSIAN WHITE RUSSIAN KANGAROO/ VODKA MARTINI BULLSHEET BLOODY MARY Vodka, coffee liqueur & ice Vodka, coffee liqueur, milk/cream & ice Vodka, vermouth, ice, olive garnish Vodka, beef broth, pepper, Tabasco/Worcestershire Vodka, tomato juice

HARVEY WALLBANGER

Vodka, Galliano & orange juice SLOW SCREW UP AGAINST THE WALL Vodka, sloe gin, Galliano & orange juice LONG ISLAND ICED TEA Vodka, triple sec

COSMOPOLITAN Vodka, lime & cranberry juice

VODKA RED BULL Vodka & Red Bull energy drink (UK)

VODKA MADE ITS FIRST APPEARANCES in the US, when the first wave of East European and Russian immigrants arrived at the turn of the 20th century. Discovered by experimental bar staff, often the drinks innovators, they found this neutral spirit needed some spicing up to entice Americans to drink this new liquor. It is fitting the first claimed vodka cocktail, the Russian, was credited to New Orleans, America’s home to cocktails. The focus moved to New York City, the centre for modern vodka cocktail creations. It was also this city where most East Europeans had settled, and vodka brands were becoming more common.

MOSCOW MULE: John Martin, the owner of Heublein and the Smirnoff brand in America, made frequent trips to Los Angeles when he was courting his wife-to-be, Hollywood actress Jane Weeks. He visited the Sunset Strip bar stocking Smirnoff, called the Cock ‘n Bull. Vodka sales were reputedly slow at this bar back in 1941, so with the owner Jack Morgan and bartender Wes Price they formulated a new cocktail using one part vodka, two parts ginger beer, with a splash of lime juice, ice, and mint to garnish. To give the new cocktail novel presentation, Morgan suggested a copper mug which a local friend manufactured. It looked smart and distinctive while keeping the drink cold. They chose the name Moscow Mule as Russian vodka still had a mistaken reputation as having the kick of a mule. ❧

The Moscow Mule cocktail, includes vodka, ginger beer, squeeze of fresh lime and garnished with fresh mint. Traditionally served in a copper mug

Vodka in Australia

AUSTRALIANS DRINK OVER 14 MILLION BOTTLES OF VODKA AND 93 MILLION RTD (READY TO DRINK) CANS A YEAR. IT’S OUR SECOND FAVOURITE SPIRIT AFTER WHISKY. BACK IN THE EARLY 1950S, IT WAS UNKNOWN EXCEPT TO SOME EAST EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS LOOKING FOR THE TASTE OF HOME.

THE FIRST VODKA MOST LIKELY CAME when the first Russians started to immigrate to Australia in the 1890s. One enterprising group of Russian émigrés settled in Brisbane after the 1917 Revolution bringing 919 gallons of vodka with them (4,178 litres). When they discovered Customs would be charging them 42 shillings a gallon excise ($150,000 in today’s value), they refused, so it was poured into Moreton Bay by officials. Until the Russian Revolution in 1917, less than 15,000 Russians had immigrated to Australia. One of these immigrants, Peter Walcaw, claimed to be the nephew of Peter Smirnov and had worked as a chemist at the Moscow distillery before immigrating in 1911. In 1943, he began marketing a liqueur vodka using the Peter Smirnoff formula in Sydney. Duplicating the Russian recipe, he used filtered grain spirit, compounded with sugar and fruits such as cherry and apple. In 1952, he sold his business to the Curtis family who three years earlier emigrated from Hungary. They continued to produce and sell Peter Smirnoff vodka made in Sydney, later becoming Continental Distillers. In Adelaide, a recent arrival from Estonia, Ernst Kirsch also started making vodka in 1952, calling it Etka. Down in Melbourne, W & A Gilbey’s began importing Smirnoff made in the US in 1954. A couple of years later they would be making Smirnoff at their Melbourne gin distillery. As well as locally made vodkas, Polish vodka was also being imported after the Second World War.

After a trademark challenge by W & A Gilbey’s against Continental Distillers prompted Continental to build a large distillery in Pagewood, Sydney. There they produced Karloff vodka from 1964, a year later United Distillers in Port Melbourne launched Robka. Vodka was quickly moving from its traditional ethnic base to a new audience of young Australian adult drinkers. Even though dozens of brands were imported from Europe, Australian made vodka led the pack selling 64,000 bottles in 1966, to over 1.5 million in 1985. At this high point, Australian distilleries began closing down production due to the lowering of import tariffs. New overseas competitors arrived including Russian vodkas brands such as Stolichnaya, Absolut from Sweden, Nikoloi from the US and Borzoi from Britain. When Gilbey’s distillery closed in 1985, Smirnoff was imported from New Zealand.

Fast forward to the present and a handful of craft distilleries around Australia are now producing locally made vodkas from grain to molasses, even potatoes. While Russia remains the largest seller of vodka in Australia, the global competition still comes from all over the world, not only Russia, from Finland, Iceland, France, Denmark, Canada, Netherland and even Africa.

‘RUSSIA DID NOT INVENT VODKA’: A most bizarre attempt at misinformation was propagated by one of America’s largest distillers during the Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union. Publicker tried to disenfranchise vodka from Russia and their captive nations, Poland and the Baltic States, by claiming Incas invented vodka. In 1956, they unleashed a PR campaign in support of the launch of their new American vodka, Cavalier. At the Waldorf Astoria, journalists were ‘aghast with surprise’ as VP John Leblon and historian Mrs. Karmatz revealed this extraordinary story. They told how the Incas in Peru, ’brewed up some wild tubers one afternoon to come up with a potent drink’. The Incas also discovered corn and quinoa could make their chatka booze. This was part of the assertion that the Russians even appropriated the word chatka for vodka. The Incas later took their chatka to the far north, to the Iroquois nation of North America who disseminated it to other tribes. Around 800 ACE, the local Beothuk tribe encountered the seafaring Varangians. These were Vikings who landed in Newfoundland, Canada and commenced distilling the world’s first vodka with corn and presumably potatoes too. Interestingly, the first potatoes were only planted in North America in 1791, when Irish immigrants brought the first tubers to New Hampshire from Ireland.

Mohawk chief, Bright Canoe gave testimony to this new historical revelation. He stated his grandfather once made a potato spirit, suggesting this was proof enough vodka was made in Canada some 1150 years earlier. The chief confessed, being a Canadian, he only drank Canadian whisky. ❧