Vodka: a neutral distilled spirit — production, history, and uses

The word vodka comes from the Slavic languages. It is a diminutive of the Polish word woda or the Russian word вода for 'water'. The spirit used to be called Wutka in German, which is closest to the Polish pronunciation (wódka). Today's German spelling and pronunciation most closely resembles the Lower Sorbian language (wodka) or, for example, the Czech pronunciation (vodka).

Start of grain distillation

According to written records, the first vodka was distilled in 1405 in the former Kingdom of Poland in Sandomierz, which has a traditional distillation process still used in Poland today. In all likelihood, the current method of vodka production came about evolutionarily and thanks to the abundance of rye in agrarian countries such as Poland and Russia. Early vodka was only about half as strong as today's.

Vodka from the 16th to the 19th century

From the 16th to the 18th century, vodka in Russia was only allowed to be sold in taverns that had a permit from the Tsar. However, as this principle did not prove successful, Tsar Peter the Great finally released vodka production, but had it taxed. Catherine II restricted the right of production again and only nobles and state enterprises were allowed to officially produce the spirit. In the 19th century, the potato emerged as a raw material and cheap spirits flooded the Eastern European market. At the end of the 19th century, therefore, the state monopoly on production was reintroduced in Russia. It is unclear whether the chemist and developer of the periodic table, Dmitri Mendeleev, is also the "inventor" of "modern" vodka. What is known, however, is that he introduced the unit of measurement gram for vodka, because the so-called "stopka", the traditional vodka glass, holds 100 grams. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject of the combination of water and ethanol, but only discussed mixing ratios from 70 % ethanol.

The oldest brand vodka is Wyborowa, which has been produced in Poznan, Poland, since 1823 and was also exported to other Western European countries from 1873. From 1874, the Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Spiritusfabrikation of the Verein der Spiritusfabrikanten in Deutschland developed the first German vodka brand, Adler vodka.

Vodka producers with a long tradition are, besides Poles, Russians and Ukrainians, also the Swedes and Finns. Besides, grain brandies very similar to vodka were popular in Northern Germany. In other nations, this spirit was completely unknown to the general population by the end of the 19th century. In Western Europe, vodka was only appreciated in aristocratic circles as a rare Eastern European speciality.

Vodka in the 20th century

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II banned the serving and sale of vodka. This led to a slump in state revenues by a third. As a result, bootlegging flourished everywhere. During the storming of the Winter Palace in the course of the October Revolution, the tsar's alcohol stocks were also plundered.

The Bolsheviks completely banned the production and sale of all types of alcohol, but had to abandon this ban in 1925 for reasons of financial policy. Under Stalin, a considerable part of the state budget was financed from the profits of the state vodka monopoly. During the Second World War, vodka rations were introduced for the soldiers of the Red Army.

Due to the temporary prohibition in Russia, numerous producers of vodka emigrated after the October Revolution and brought the production of vodka to Western Europe, North America and even New Zealand. Initially consumed only in exiled Russian communities, vodka became a world drink through the cocktail boom beginning in the 1950s. Former Russian exiles such as Smirnoff and Gorbatschow became global brands, as did new Western brands such as Pushkin, a subsidiary of Berentzen.

In the 1980s, there were years in the Soviet Union when Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev had vodka production severely restricted. Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign led to a flourishing of moonshine distilleries as well as a rapid increase in cases of alcohol poisoning. Under the government of Boris Yeltsin, vodka production in Russia was reopened at the beginning of the 1990s, the state monopoly was lifted, and the number of vodka brands grew considerably, sometimes in cooperation with Western spirits corporations.