You may not be making it rain at the club or playing cards in the back of a smoky garage with a hard-nosed Russian named Timur Kenzaghul, but the rise of artisan spirits ensures that you can still drink vodka. The spirit has recently undergone a renaissance, thanks in part to distillers from around the world who take advantage of native ingredients and traditional distilling methods to put their own unique twists on the drink.
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Ultimat, Bielsko-Biala, Poland
The 40 percent ABV Ultimat, a Polish vodka, contains spirits made from potato, wheat and rye. From the potato, the vodka gets its richness, from the wheat, smoothness, and from the rye, a hint of grain. Forty percent is typical of Eastern European vodkas, and the reason why is your fun fact of the day: Dmitri Mendeleev, father of the periodic table, became Russia’s Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures in 1893, where he was charged with setting the state standard for the production of vodka. Although he found 38 percent to be the ultimate number, spirits were taxed based on their proof, and so the state rounded up to simplify the computation.