When distillation techniques reached Eastern Europe, the local inhabitants primarily used mead and beer as raw materials, and the resulting distilled products formed the prototype of vodka. Whether it was the Russians or the Poles who first coined the term ‘vodka’ (Russian: vodka, Polish: wodka) cannot be verified today. However, the Russian term ‘vodka’ originally referred to a medicinal spirit distilled from grain; yet, with the passage of time, ‘vodka’ has gradually come to be synonymous with alcoholic beverages.
Regardless of the distillation process employed, whether it involves ageing or the type of container used, as long as activated carbon, quartz sand or any other neutral purification and filtration method is applied, virtually any raw material conceivable can be transformed into vodka using a 2,000-litre still. However, this is merely the modern perception. Activated carbon purification only emerged in 1780, yet the term ‘vodka’ had already existed for over 200 years prior to that!
Regardless of what vodka was before 1780, what do you think distinguishes Vodka and Single Malt in terms of production techniques? How different are they from rum, cognac, gin, or even Chinese baijiu? Provided you are not averse to spending money or going to the trouble, anything that can be distilled—even Romanée-Conti—can be turned into vodka; if you wish to argue that ‘Romanée-Conti Vodka’ is merely a fantasy and does nothing to alter vodka’s lowbrow reputation, then consider that vodka does exist in the form of a 50-year-old single cask aged in a sherry cask.
A proper vodka distillery always has these 2,000-litre vodka stills: raw alcohol is mixed with half water, and distillation separates the harmful lipids from the water vapour. After rectification, the alcohol-water mixture enters the first distillation column, also known as the ‘reaction column’, which consists of 40 perforated distillation plates. If the quality of the raw alcohol is poor, the mixture enters from the 20th tray at the top; if it is of good quality, it enters from the 17th tray. Depending on requirements, the alcohol-water mixture moves from top to bottom under varying pressures and temperatures, meeting the rising water vapour from the bottom of the tower.
