Talk:Vodka/Archive 1

message: This is mostly a chemistry question and might be better asked on the alcohol page but I was wondering why, on a molecular level, vodka blends so well with a traditional tomato sauce (for example in a penne with vodka recipe).  I ask here because you rarely see gin or other alcoholic beverages used in such recipes.  As an amateur chemist I would guess that the relatively small size and polarity of the ethanol molecules allow them to bond easily with most polar substances including the proteins within a traditional tomato sauce, but I'm still not sure why the flavors blend so well or why vodka would be used at all in such recipes.  What, exactly, does the vodka add?
Rhettoric 17:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's what confuses me about "vodka sauce" ... when you cook something with alcohol in it, the alcohol itself volatilizes off. And vodka is very little but alcohol and water ... unlike gin, which has a lot of herbal flavorings. So how does the vodka contribute anything to the sauce? --FOo 19:57, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The use of Vodka as a cooking ingredient

message: I'd say it's about time to separate List of vodkas into a separate article.  Objections?  —Michael Z.
::That would probably be a good idea, considering there's also a List of cocktails -- Sander 15:03, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of vodkas 

message: In the following passage
:In some Central European countries like Poland vodka is being produced by just fermenting a solution of crystal sugar and some nutrious salts for the yeast and distilling this after a few weeks.
I commented out the word "nutrious," not knowing whether this was a misspelling of "nutritious" or "nitrous" or what. I trust someone more familiar with vodka production to correct it. Lusanaherandraton 02:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncertain word 

message: The following piece removed from the paragraph about danges of moonshine, due to contradictory text.
: Methanol, however, boils at a higher temperature in mixture (see azeotrope diagrams) than ethanol (or ethyl alcohol, to which the broad term 'alcohol' is applied); thus methanol is often referred to as the "tails." (This is not the case, methanol boils off at approximatly 65 degrees celcius, and comes off the still before the heads in the foreshot, and certainly before the ethanol at 77 degrees celcius.  Instead the tails consist of the higher 'fusil' alcohols which are avoided because of their nasty smell and taste)  By controlling the temperature of the mash, methanol can be successfully excluded from the final product.  
Expert alcoholics, please clarify. mikka (t) 22:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Methanol 

message: I've got nothing against the picture of Chopin vodka on the page, but as it's the only one, and is quite big, it looks like advertising. How about we add 5-6 other pictures of (bottles of) other vodkas to show some of the varieties of the drink? ProhibitOnions 18:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pictures

message: "Similarly, the German market often carries German-/Hungarian-/Polish-/Ukrainian- made varieties of vodka of 90 to 95% alcohol content (as well as straw rum of the same potency)".
Surely, it should be spelt Stroh/Ströh Rum? 81.208.164.27 18:44, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straw rum? 

message: I will remove a misleading paragraph in the section on Etymology.  The paragraph states that Russian pronunciation of Vodka is vod-ka while Belorussian is vod-ka.  This is utter nonsense.  Both Russian and Belorussian pronunciations are exactly the same, with the stress on the first syllable. 131.111.8.97 16:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed misleading paragraph on Etymology 

message: Some comments regarding the GA nomination and the GA criteria at WP:WIAGA:
"1(a) it has compelling prose, and is readily comprehensible to non-specialist readers;" - I'd agree with this, except for the "Vodka and the EU" section. I think it would read better as "Vodka producers in Finland, Poland and Sweden are campaigning for EU legislation that will categorize...vodka. Any drink then not made from either grain or potatoes would then have to be labeled as "Spirit Drinks" instead. Brands that would be affected if the law is passed include Ciroc, Moskova and Kirov" with the sub-heading and list deleted.
1b,d seem OK. For 1c see 6a. 2a,c,d seem OK, although I don't have access to the references.
"2(b) the citation of its sources is essential, and the use of inline citations is desirable, although not mandatory;" - Sources have been cited but inline citations are not used (save for one case in the history section). It won't fail GA as a result, but inline citations (footnotes) are preferred to make it easier to verify things.
3,4 seem OK
"5. It is stable, i.e. it does not change significantly from day to day and is not the subject of ongoing edit wars. This does not apply to vandalism and protection or semi-protection as a result of vandalism, or proposals to split/merge the article content." I'm looking at "There is no trademark for vodka" discussion above on the talk page, last comment written yesterday. Seems there are some problems with this.
"6(a) the images are tagged and have succinct and descriptive captions;" also from the Manual of Style "Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article." - Zodiac Vodka's caption isn't descriptive. Also I'm not sure all three bottles are needed, is there something the makes one bottle of vodka different from the next? The Manual of Style suggests "If there are too many images in a given article, consider using a gallery."
Hope this is of some help! Alexj2002 21:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed you've added a gallery so I've struckout point six above. However looking at the talk-page and edit history there appears to be an edit war going on, which means the article fails criteria 5 (i.e. it is not stable). I'm therefore going to fail the article for the moment. Once the article becomes stable again, the article can be resubmitted. Alexj2002 16:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good Article nomination - comments 

message: Here is from "Gorzałka czyli historia i zasady wypalania mocnych trunków" by Jan Rogala, Baobab (publisher), 2004, p. 39-40 (I kept the original style - boldings etc):
:W Polsce praktykowano "palenie" czy "pędzenie" wódki już od wczesnego średniowiecza. W XVI wieku wódka była już bardzo dobrze znana. Dzieło Stefana Falimierza, wydane w 1534 roku w Krakowie zawiera rozdział: O paleniu wódek z ziół. Wiele wiadomości na temat pędzenia wódek niesie książka Jerzego Potańskiego Wódka lub gorzałka, wydana w 1614 roku. Jakub Kazimierz Hawra opublikował Skład albo skarbiec znakomitych sekretów w 1693 roku w Krakowie, a w niej zamieścił rozdziały: Diskurs o zdrowych likworach i Gorzałka i gorzalnicy. Podał w nich szczegółowe przepisy sporządzania z żyta surowicy żytniej. Z prac tych wynika, że nazwy: wódka i gorzałka były znane i stosowane w Polsce już z górą 400 lat temu, a pędzenie wódki dobrze znane w średniowieczu. W Polsce pędzenie wódki z żyta rozpoczęto w XV wieku. Warto wspomnieć, że w połowie XVII wieku monopol produkcji i sprzedaży napojów alkoholowych na terenach szlacheckich przyznano polskiej szlachcie. Był on źródłem wielkich dochodów, a na terenie Kongresówki zniesiony został dopiero w 1898 roku. 
p. 42
:Szczegółowe metody produkcji opisane są w interesujących osiemnastowiecznych publikacjach. W pracy Jana Pawła Biretowskiego Wiadomość ciekawa z 1768 roku jest rozdział o sposobach przyrządania wódek. Jan Chryzostom Simon wydał Informację praktyczną o paleniu wódek, pędzeniu dobrych alembikowych gorzałek i likworów w 1774 roku w wydawnictwie Posera w Warszawie i we Lwowie.
*The book of Stefan Falimierz is in The British Library of the United Kingdom 
*I didn't find the place where the Potańskis' book is held, but I found it listed in two places:  Potański is also quoted in Polish quotations database: O, wódko zdradliwa, Wielom rzeczom krzywa.
Perhaps we might translate some of the above and add to the article.--SylwiaS | talk 20:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another quotation 

message: Is this quote by Picasso sourced in any way? I found an article where the three things are: blues, cubism and Polish vodka, and not in France but anywhere in the first half of the 20th century.--SylwiaS | talk 06:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found the quotation by Picasso: "The three most astonishing things in the past half-century were the blues, cubism, and Polish vodka." here. Since there is no other source for the other one, I'll change it.--SylwiaS | talk 11:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He could have said it in any of several languages, but I couldn't find this (using several variants, such as "vodka polonais" and vodka pologne) in French or Catalan; there's a source paraphrasing him in Spanish here , but unfortunately not quoting him directly; note that the three things here are Brigitte Bardot, jazz, and Polish vodka. I fear this, too, might be "the sort of thing he might have said"; there are plenty of other examples of people putting words into the mouths of celebrities.  ProhibitOnions  (T) 11:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or he might have said both. He lived long enough to say many things, many times. Perhaps it's simply time to make Trivia section and put things like that there, and give more facts in the history section instead of sayings.--SylwiaS | talk 12:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picasso