Tag: vodka

Vodka of the week: Beattie’s farm-made vodkas are a proper slice of Canada

Canadian vodka is good vodka, it turns out.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

I’ve found it’s tough to have an opinion on good vodka.

Terrible vodka, sure. You can compare it to nail polish remover or whatever you used to clean out Nintendo cartridges back in the day. But good vodkas tend to blend together for a relative neophyte like me who rarely drinks it outside the context of a cocktail. You’ve got smooth … and then what?

Fortunately Beattie’s potato vodkas are here to expand my horizons, for better or worse. The Alliston, Ontario distillery offers a limited array of tuber-based spirits in simple flavors and simple packaging. Each bottle looks true to its farmhouse roots, and it’s one I’m eager to try despite my lack of familiarity.

I’ve had my share of Canadian alcohol in my life. Moosehead makes what might be my favorite large scale lager. Canadian whisky is a special blend of smooth and inexpensive that made it a go-to in college and reliable standby now.

But I’d never had Canadian vodka until now. Until I found out about Beattie’s, I don’t know if I’d ever really heard about it. A little research suggests there are a handful of established distillers up north, some quaint and some wearing the equivalent of denim-on-denim and screeching for attention by bottling their booze in a dang hockey stick.

Beattie’s presents itself as a leader in the field. How does it measure up to that standard? I’m gonna mix Beattie’s into a handful of cocktails and see how it turns out. And I’m gonna start with a craft mixer I’ve been meaning to try for a while now; Q Mixer’s ginger ale.

Beverage of the Week: Welp, they made me try peach lemonade vodka

Honestly it’s way better than I expected.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

Flavored liquors have taken off in recent years. The booming popularity of spirits like Fireball and Skrewball (540 percent growth in 2020!) is a reflection of a market that’s typically rewarded tinkerers trying to make middling drinks taste a little less like themselves.

That’s especially true when it comes to vodka, which offers the blankest canvas for experimentation of all the major liquors. There’s a wide gulf between connoisseurs buying top-shelf brands to drink on ice and the multitudes happy with neutral spirits swirled with fruit juice in a garbage can or whatever.

Pinnacle and Burnett’s have made “bad vodka mixed with a bunch of random crap” their business model; a trip down their line extension reads like a Baskin-Robbins menu. While I had a whipped-cream-vodka phase for a minute back there — especially with Mountain Dew, which somehow tasted like Sour Skittles (try it, in moderation) — I’ve mostly steered away from flavored vodkas and toward whatever would mix best with Zing Zang, hot sauce, and a beef stick garnish.

Smirnoff is hoping to bring me back on board with its new 2022 offering: Peach Lemonade Vodka. I wouldn’t have bought this unless it ended up in a bargain bin at my local grocery store, but my general rule remains: If you send me booze (or non-alcoholic beverages!) I will drink it and write about it.

Right away, this bottle flies in with some lofty promises. It’s wrapped in pink and yellow like it was a leftover prop from a Duran Duran video. The description printed therein promises “a refreshing taste like crisp waves hitting the sand” and “tangy flavors as bright as the sunshine.” I don’t know what the hell a crisp wave is, but fine. Shoot your shot, copywriter.

The bottle also includes three recipes, though they’re more suggestions than actual guides. Let’s try them out, along with a classic vodka tonic since that’s effectively a perfect summer drink and, despite the fact it’s currently 55 and raining in Wisconsin, summer is pretty much here.