Review: Fire Oak Vodka
Fire Oak Vodka was released in 2016. The husband and wife team who opened the distillery in the Texas Hill Country also produce Fire Oak Texas Bourbon Whiskey. Fire Oak Vodka has been on my radar for quite sometime, as they have been collecting Gold Medals faster than Michael Phelps. Fire Oak is the official vodka of the Dallas Stars NHL hockey team. Fire Oak Vodka is small batch distilled five times in a custom copper still, from 100% non GMO corn. Read more 
Review: Space City Vodka
Space City Vodka is crafted at Whitmeyer’s Distilling Co. in Houston Texas. I picked up a bottle on a recent trip to Houston. If you have ever been to Houston you know just how space proud Houstonian’s are. Their Major League baseball team is the Astros, and their NBA basketball team is the Rockets. The Space Center in Houston hosts more than one million visitors annually. Travis and Chris Whitmeyer founded the distillery with money raised from family and friends in 2012. This was the first legal distillery in Harris County since prohibition. They also produce several whiskeys, gin, and moonshine. Space City vodka is made from corn, distilled six times, and filtered through activated carbon. Read more
Review: Black Cow Vodka
Black Cow Vodka was launched in 2012. It was created by Jason Barber, a farmer running his own dairy farm with 250 cows. The Barber family has been making cheese and producing milk for over 200 years. Black Cow is made entirely from the milk of grass grazed cows. The milk is separated into curds and whey. The curds are used to produce cheese. The whey is used to craft the vodka. A proprietary yeast is used to ferment the whey. The spirit is distilled in a copper still made in Germany by A.G. Holstein. Doesn’t it seem appropriate that a Holstein still is use to produce a milk based vodka? After distillation the vodka is triple filtered. Read more
Review: Striped Vodka
Striped Vodka was first released September 2013. It is crafted at the Striped Pig Distillery in Charleston South Carolina. In 1838 the 15-Gallon act was passed which made the sale of alcohol illegal in any quantity under 15 gallons. To circumvent this law a true entrepreneur charged guests 4 pense to see a pig painted in strips. In return the guests were served a free glass of liquor. The Striped Pig distillery takes its name from this ploy to elude the Temperance law. Striped Vodka is made from 100% locally grown corn harvested at Myer’s farm in Bowman South Carolina. The corn is milled onsite at the distillery to exact specifications. It is small batch fermented with carefully selected strains of yeast and distilled five times. The vodka is rested before bottling on site. Read more
Review: The Walter Collective Vodka
The Walter Collective Vodka was introduced the summer of 2016 joining their previously released gin. It is made from spelt, an ancient wheat grain, and triticale, a wheat-rye hybrid developed in Scotland in the late 1800’s. Matt Melaik, founder of The Walter Collective was inspired by his grandfather Walter J Bade to pursue the art and craft of creating spirits. Walter was a former World War II veteran who worked for the Chicago Water Department by day, and at night enjoyed drinking martini’s, listening to music, and painting. It is Walters image that adorns each bottle. Matt Melaik does not have his own distillery, instead he relies on a collective effort to create the finest spirits. The Walter Collective Vodka is crafted by Master Distiller Ryan Hembree at Skip Rock Distillers in Snohomish Washington. The spirit is twice distilled in small batches in a Kothe still, and minimally filtered to retain the flavor of the grain. The vodka is hand bottled on site. Read more
Review: Gallant Vodka
Gallant Vodka recently arrived at Total Wine and More. With 193 stores in 23 states Total Wine and More is a significant force in the adult beverage market. While they stock all of the most popular brands they also have dozens of brands most shoppers may not have heard or seen before. Some of these brands come from small craft distillers and some come from large private label distilleries. Gallant Vodka is produced and bottled on the banks of the Charente by A De Fussigny. The distillery, A DE Fussigny, dates back to 1814. While this distillery is best know for crafting Cognac, they also distill vodka. One of these brands is Gallant, another is Summum Vodka. Gallant Vodka is made from French winter wheat, and pure Gensac spring water sourced from the Cognac region of France. After the spirit is distilled it is slow filtered for seven days to remove impurities. Read more
Review: Haku Vodka
Haku Vodka was just launched in the US by Beam Suntory. They also released Roku Gin, a gin made with 6 Japanese botanicals. Haku translates to white in English, to represent white rice. It is made from 100% Japanese white rice in Kagoshima Kyushu, a region historically famous for its rice spirit making. The process begins with white rice fermented with Koji mold to create a mash. Koji mold is also used to make sake. The mash is distilled through pot stills. The rice spirit is then distilled through two different processes in a pot still and column still. The spirit is then blended and filtered through bamboo charcoal in Osaka Japan. Bamboo charcoal has three times more porous cavities per gram than other wood charcoal. The curved lines on the Haku bottle represent the streams glistening through Japanese nature, and represent Japan’s four seasons. Read more
Review: Party Animal Vodka
Party Animal Vodka was launched February 2018. Kate Cullen the brand founder and CEO first came up with the concept of creating a vodka that stood for a cause while she was a college student at Chapman University in Orange California. A portion of every bottle purchased will be donated to various wild and domestic animal foundations. Party Animal is made from Idaho Russet Potatoes and pristine water originating in the Teton Mountains. It is distilled and bottled by Distilled Resources in Rigby Idaho. This wind and solar powered distillery also produces the previously reviewed Square One, Blue Ice, American Harvest, 44 North, and Zodiac vodka’s. Read more
Review: Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka
Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka is now made with NON-GMO corn. The previous bottling only specified Midwest grown grain, but it was also made from corn. Monsanto created the first commercially available corn with genetically engineered modifications in 1996. Some estimate over 80% of the corn grown in the US today has been genetically modified. If you have shopped for corn recently, you will see a premium charged for NON-GMO corn. Smirnoff is not passing that added expense to it’s customers. Smirnoff is the worlds best selling vodka, and the history dates back to the 1860’s when Piotr Smirnov opened his distillery in Moscow. He was the first to use a charcoal filtration system. Smirnoff No. 21 is distilled in the US, possibly Connecticut, and bottled in Plainfield Illinois. The spirit is triple distilled and ten times filtered. I’m interested in seeing not only how the new Smirnoff No. 21 tastes, but also how it compares with the previous version. So as not to influence my review I will sample and review the new Smirnoff NO.21 before I sample an unopened bottle of the previous Smirnoff No, 21 Vodka. Read more
Review: Corbin Sweet Potato Vodka
Corbin Sweet Potato Vodka is crafted with 100% estate grown sweet potatoes by forth generation farmer David John Souza. He named the vodka after his son Corbin. Ten varieties of sweet potatoes are grown on the family farm. David spent a decade experimented with each variety of sweet potato using several different distilling techniques in creating Corbin Sweet Potato Vodka. He found some sweet potatoes tasted better and others produced more alcohol. He found the perfect balance by blending three varieties of sweet potatoes. It takes over ten pounds of sweet potatoes to produce one bottle of spirit. Each potato is hand selected and cured for 12-16 months. The potatoes are ground and cooked for 6 hours, and then fermented with yeast for five days. The spirit is small batch distilled in a 2 column Alembic copper still and filtered slowly through a carbon blend. The spring water used in production is recycled back to the farm for irrigation and the spent mash is used as fertilizer or cattle feed. Read more