I thought vodka came from potatoes.
Vodka is generally made from potatoes or cereal grains.
Vodka is just a neutral spirit. Distilled ethanol diluted with water. White lightning.
As such, unflavored vodka has no taste, no color. It's pure alcohol reduced in proof.
A new whiskey distillery begins by distilling neutral spirits. The neutral spirit (ethanol) is reduced in proof, then put in wood barrels to age and acquire flavor and color.
Since whiskey must be aged for some years, new distilleries usually market vodka at first since it is the first product they produce. The ethanol comes right off the still.
Buying premium plain vodka is one of the most foolish wastes of money. It's just ethanol and water. Brilliant marketing to sell ethanol and water.
Take your Stoli bottle and fill it with Popov and no one will know the difference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka"Vodka may be distilled from any starch- or sugar-rich plant matter; most vodka today is produced from grains such as sorghum, corn, rye or wheat. Among grain vodkas, rye and wheat vodkas are generally considered superior. Some vodkas are made from potatoes, molasses, soybeans, grapes, rice, sugar beets and sometimes even byproducts of oil refining[30] or wood pulp processing. In some Central European countries, such as Poland, some vodka is produced by just fermenting a solution of crystal sugar and yeast. In the European Union there are talks about the standardization of vodka, and the Vodka Belt countries insist that only spirits produced from grains, potato and sugar beet molasses be allowed to be branded as "vodka", following the traditional methods of production.[31][32]
In the United States, many vodkas are made from 95% pure grain alcohol produced in large quantities by agricultural-industrial giants Archer Daniels Midland, Grain Processing Corporation,[33] and Midwest Grain Products (MGP).[34] Bottlers purchase the base spirits in bulk, then filter, dilute, distribute and market the end product under a variety of vodka brand names.[35] Similar methods are used in other regions such as Europe.[36]
This pure grain alcohol, also known as rectified spirit, neutral spirit, or ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin is also available directly to consumers in some areas, as products such as Everclear, Polmos spirytus rektyfikowany, and others. In contrast to very-high ABV vodkas such as the Bulgarian Balkan 176° with 88% ABV, these grain alcohol products are not considered vodka; they have not (yet) gone through the filtration and refining process used to produce vodka.[3][36][37]
A study conducted on NPR's Planet Money podcast revealed negligible differences in taste between various brands of vodka, leading to speculation as to how much branding contributes to the concept of "super premium vodkas".[38]"
