Those of you with exotic explanations for the origin of the name ‘Death’s Door’ should know that it has rather prosaic origins, inspired by the legendary Death’s Door passageway between Washington Island and the Door County. It is believed, however, to be a passageway that lives up to its name, as it is littered with shipwrecks and is considered by sailors to be one of the more difficult fresh water passages to navigate. The Death’s Door vodka that I tasted at the Berlin Bar Convent in October, however, was anything but prosaic, and indeed similar to the other two vodkas profiled in this article, one from Mongolia and the other from Siberia. For those approaching vodka as a colourless, odourless spirit to be doused in orange juice or in a Bloody Mary, they’d be pleasantly surprised at what Death’s Door has to offer.
Death’s Door is a good bet if you’re looking for a new brand for your bar. As in food, the words ‘craft,’ ‘small-batch,’ ‘hand-made’ and ‘organic’ have all invaded the world of alcoholic beverages and vodka brands have not shied away from the party. Death’s Door is also a craft vodka made in small batches, from organic malted barley and wheat, both sourced from local farmers in Wisconsin. A brand to tick all the boxes for millenials.
Vikram Achanta In a December 2014 article in the New York Times , Audrey Saunders, noted mixologist and owner of NY Cocktail bar, Pegu Club, says, “things have really come full circle”. Her comment relates to vodka now starting to feature as a cocktail ingredient in A-list cocktail bars. A spirit long disdained by bartenders as being devoid of any distinguishing characteristics, it is one of the most produced spirits in the world, and the sheer weight of numbers (and brands) has begun to count.
Concurs Nischal Gurung, a Delhi-based vodka collector, who started collecting vodka brands nearly 10 years ago, and now has more than 30 in his collection: “Each brand has its unique flavour, perhaps not as prominent as whisky, brandy or rum, but there is a bit of flavour that comes out”.
Did you know that the traditional Mongolian drinking ritual is to dip your ring finger into the liquid and then flick the finger to the past behind, the present above you and the future before you?
The last thing I would associate the wide-open steppes of Mongolia is vodka, but Soyombo, named after the eponymous script of Mongolia, and Chinggis Khan (named after you-know-who) have me at a loss for words. Soyombo has a creamy taste and a hint of aniseed ( saunf ). Crafted in small batches at a distillery situated at the Bogd Khan’s Winter Palace, it comes packaged in an elegant bottle.
The rebirth of vodka in the 1960s was due to two major contributory factors, one was a 1958 novel called Dr. No , in which James Bond famously spoke these lines: “ A medium Vodka dry Martini — with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred please. I would prefer Russian or Polish vodka.”
The other was somewhat earlier, when in the 1940’s, a bar in the U.S. called the Cock and the Bull had a proprietor called Jack Morgan, who along with John Martin, the then brand owner of Smirnoff, concocted a drink called the Moscow Mule with Smirnoff and ginger beer (Moscow due to it’s Russian origins and Mule because it kicked like a mule). Smirnoff (and vodka) never looked back from there.
Bond’s choices in wines and spirits have been many over the years, quite like his bevy of girls, but he has retained his loyalty to vodka, with his current choice being Belvedere, which features in the new movie Spectre , leading to Moet Hennessy launching a global marketing blitz around this product placement.
A friend returning from Russia a few years ago gifted me one of the most exquisite bottles of alcohol I have ever come across, a brand of Siberian vodka called Mamont. Mamont is the Russian word for mammoth, and Mamont also has a story you would love to tell your friends as you pour them a shot. In 2002, a group of explorers found the tusk of a Mammoth peeking out of the melting ice in the Siberian tundra. The layers of ice gradually revealed a whole Mammoth, which came to be known as the Yukagir Mammoth, unearthed after spending 18,000 years in the ice. One of the explorers then decided to create a vodka to pay homage to this Mammoth, which they began distilling in Itkul distillery, one of Siberia’s oldest distilleries located at the foot of the Altai mountains.
Death’s Door, Soyombo and Mamont are just three of the more than 1,000 brands of vodka on the face of the earth, but they’re great to begin with if you would like to build your own vodka collection; or, at the very least, three great new talking points for your home bar.
Vikram is co-founder and CEO of tulleeho.com, a drinks website, and Tulleeho, a drinks training and consulting firm.
