num_pages: 272
description: It began as poisonous rotgut in Medieval RussiaIvan the Terrible liked it Peter the Great loved itbut this grain alcohol without distinctive character aroma taste or color has become our uncontested king of spirits. Over a thousand brands fight for market share shelved in glass skulls Tommy guns bulletproof bottles; flavored with pears currants chipotle; or quintuple distilled by Donald Trump. But it wasnt always thus. For 200 years America drank the brown stuff which gave us Colonial rumrunners the Whiskey Rebellion and Bourbon County Kentucky. So how did Russias little water originally a medieval rotgut medicine unseat Americas favorite hooch? Vic Matus takes us on an incredible visual journey from vodkas humble American origins in a Depression-era Connecticut factoryusing the family recipe from a poor Russian exile in France named Vladimir Smirnovthrough its rise to glamour and fame at the hands of James Bond and the 1990s boom enshrined in Sex and the City s Grey Goose Cosmos to todays craft distillery movement which approaches the drink as an art form. Youll see in clear intoxicating detail how hippie culture womens lib and an absolutely ingenious Swedish company all played their part transforming the booze into a status symbol. By 1975 the war had Vodka officially became our favorite spirit. Today a third of all cocktails ordered contain it. Last year $20 billion in sales poured in from more than 140 million gallons of the stuff. Here is the crisply distilled bracing story of how risk-taking entrepreneurs defied the odds and turned medieval medicine into a multibillion-dollar industry.
language: English
title: Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America
publisher: Lyons Press