As a Scotsman who grew up in a small town with its own distillery that goes
back hundereds of years I find this conversation quite amusing. Now living
in Prague i find it strange no one has mentioned Absinthe the ranges,
flavours and history of this drink nearly rivals that of my own nations
choice.
Vodka I cannot comment on being in eastern europe I am surrounded by some of
the highest standards but also due to dumb tourists some of the lowest (
Tesco make their own vodka here and even with redbull the taste is quite
overpowering and not in a good way! ) :)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Raymond E. Feist" <[email protected]>
To: "feistfans-l" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2011 3:26 AM
Subject: Re: Scotch Question and grumble about Magicians getting a TV show
deal
On Oct 14, 2011, at 4:42 PM, Nick Andrews wrote:
Hi Ray,
How about vodka? There are a couple made in of all places, Texas,
that are quite good. Tito's, with the cheesy copper-colored cap is as
good as Stoli. And there's, but I can't recall the name. I think it
is something River with a frog on the label.
Tito's Handmade Vodka. Only pot still vodka made on the planet, from Austin,
Texas. Very crisp and clean. I like it a great deal.
Vodka is difficult. First, you judge it on "heat" rather than flavor.
Really fine vodka is smooth and leaves no "burn" on the tongue. Most people
don't care because most people use it in mixed drinks, but on the rocks with
a squeeze of lime is my choice. At the bottom you have pain remover, and in
the middle a huge range of pretty interchangeable stuff. You can't do a
blind tasting and tell Belvedere, Stolichnaya, Grey Goose, or Russian
Standard. They're all going to be pretty much the same, nice. In the
really high end, you have a few that are smooth and tangy without any heat,
like Ciriq, Cavali, and Imperia. What a lot of vodka distillers now are
doing are a huge number of flavored (infused) vodkas, everything from orange
to pepper, wheatgrass, green tea, or anything else they can dream up. One
particularly good one is a Napa CA distiller Charvres which has a Blood
Orange (large, dark fruit Mexican oranges for those of you far from Southern
California) which is very tasty. You're also seeing open peat stilled, very
scotch like, from a couple of producers, Effen in Holland being the first I
tried.
The best thing about Vodka is you can find some very reasonably priced good
Vodkas, like YES! Crater Lake, and others.
Best, R.E.F.
-----
www.crydee.com
Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by
stupidity.
