Tasting

Forty percent, the story often goes, was fixed for vodka by a chemist from St. Petersburg. The reference is to Dmitri Mendeleev, who taught at the city's university. The story is persistent, but false. Mendeleev's 1865 doctoral thesis dealt with mixtures of alcohol and water above 70 percent, and had nothing to do with vodka. What's more, the 40 percent rule had already existed in Russia since 1843, when he was only nine years old.

He did later sit, in 1895, on a commission dealing with alcohol taxes. But there's no record of him saying a single word there about the correct strength of vodka. The legend only became popular a century later, largely thanks to a Soviet nonfiction book from 1991. At the university where Mendeleev actually conducted his research, this attribution would likely have surprised him as much as anyone.

What actually ends up in the glass is easier to describe. According to the distillery, Russian Standard tastes pure and slightly sweet, shaped by winter wheat and the soft Ladoga water, without any noticeable sharpness in the finish. Ladoga's Tsarskaya Gold, thanks to its infusion of linden and honey, carries a fine sweetness that rounds out the pure alcohol flavor.

Both vodkas show just how much rectification smooths out flavor. Rather than bold aromas of grain or potato, Russian vodka tends to foreground texture instead. The key question is whether it feels oily or watery on the palate, and whether a fine sweetness or a light sharpness lingers in the finish.

A small, narrow glass is all you need for tasting. The temperature should sit just above freezing, colder than any standard refrigerator can typically manage. Smell it briefly at the rim of the glass first, then hold a small sip in your mouth instead of swallowing it right away. This reveals whether a vodka truly tastes pure, or is simply cold enough to hide its flaws.