Saturday is National Vodka Day! Let’s Celebrate!

You may not know it, but this Saturday, October 4, is National Vodka Day! Admittedly, there are lots and lots of random holidays (one for everything, it seems), and most are curiosities at best. However,this particular day is well worth celebrating. Not only because hey, it’s Saturday, and you should pick up any good excuse for a wing-ding, but also because vodka is one seriously misrepresented and underappreciated spirit.

What? Vodka? Super popular vodka? Yep, that’s right, vodka is underappreciated and misrepresented. Some folks (and a fair number bartenders) pooh-pooh vodka, because they consider it tasteless, while at the same time, a host people who drink gallons of vodka don’t realize that it should be more than just an alcohol delivery liquid. Traditionally, and today when you find it made with love and care, individual vodkas contained layers of personality and flavor. Sadly, mass-market vodkas, which dominate shelves and are made by distilling and distilling and filtering until every bit of taste and flavor and joy is gone, have confused people.

But there are worthy vodkas available, including a bunch from right here in Washington. Try Skip Rock’s vodka, made from Yukon gold potatoes grown in our state, Seattle Distilling Company vodka, which has a beautiful wheat flavor with spice hints, or Woodinville Whiskey’s Peabody Jones vodka, which has a memorable butterscotch-ness with a bit of pepper and see how right I am. There are also a few of the big brands getting the message, too, with Chopin vodka recently releasing its “Single” spirit, which can’t be called a “vodka” in Poland because it’s only distilled once. But this single distilling equals huge earthy and vanilla flavors that blow its regular vodka away. All of these well-made vodkas make this Saturday even more important and mean it’s a fantastic time to bring back real vodkas by trying a few neat, on the rocks, or in one of the below cocktails from my book Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz.

1. Ballets Russes
Named after a famous Russian ballet troupe from the earlier part of the 20th century, this drink may well have you spending your National Vodka Day dancing, and perhaps wearing a tutu. Both of which would be fine way to make a Saturday memorable.

Ice cubes

2 ounces Seattle Distilling Company vodka

1 ounce Sidetrack Distillery cassis

1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice 

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the vodka, cassis, and lime juice. Shake well.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a small ballet shoe.

2. Triomphe Cocktail
This was created by renowned San Franciscan bartender Erik Ellestad, who also is behind the Underhill-Lounge blog (www.underhill-lounge.flannestad.com), on which he set out to make every cocktail from the classic Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock. A worthy accomplishment indeed.

Ice cubes

1-1/2 ounces Skip Rock vodka

3/4 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 ounce yellow Chartreuse

1/2 ounce Simple Syrup

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the vodka, lemon juice, Chartreuse, and simple syrup. Shake well. 

2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Twist the twist over the glass and add it to the drink.

3. Genoese
This liquid paean to the Italian port city Genoa not only features misunderstood spirit vodka, but also super-duper misunderstood grappa. A strong Italian pomace brandy, made from grape seeds, skins, and pits, grappa has a bad rep due to bad grappa. But good grappa is flavorful and a perfect after-dinner sipper, and goes swell in this drink.

Ice cubes

1 ounce Peabody Jones vodka

1 ounce grappa

1/2 ounce Sambuca

1/2 ounce dry vermouth

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the vodka, grappa, Sambuca, and vermouth. Shake well.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass.