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Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America

Product ID : 20057444


Galleon Product ID 20057444
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About Vodka: How A Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit

Product Description It began as poisonous rotgut in Medieval Russia—Ivan the Terrible liked it, Peter the Great loved it—but 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 wasn’t 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 Russia’s “little water,” originally a medieval rotgut medicine, unseat America’s favorite hooch? Vic Matus takes us on an incredible visual journey from vodka’s humble American origins in a Depression-era Connecticut factory—using the family recipe from a poor Russian exile in France named Vladimir Smirnov—through 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 today’s craft distillery movement, which approaches the drink as an art form. You’ll see in clear, intoxicating detail how hippie culture, women’s lib, and an absolutely ingenious Swedish company all played their part, transforming the booze into a status symbol. By 1975, the war had ended: 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. Review "Fascinating ... the finished product goes down nice and smooth, providing great insight into the vodka industry in its current state."—Publishers Weekly“Make mine a double! I’ll be reading Vodka more than once, and I don’t understand how ‘Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless’ got into the subtitle of this vivid, pungent, and savory book.”—P. J. O’Rourke“Fantastic. Victorino Matus has written one of the most interesting books of the year. Vodka is a great story, and he tells it perfectly. I got so absorbed, I missed cocktail hour. Buy three copies.”—Tucker Carlson“An excellent book on a spirit remarkable for being unremarkable, Vodka is a brilliant social history, an incisive study of business and marketing, and a lot of fun to read.”—Michael Ruhlman, New York Times–bestselling and James Beard– and IACP Award–winning author of The Soul of a Chef, The French Laundry Cookbook (with Thomas Keller), Charcuterie, and Ruhlman's Twenty.“Vodka made me laugh, learn, think, and savor the journey. On every page, I thought: I want one now. Put this great book on its own shelf with a tall bottle of vodka next to it. You’ll love it.”—Larry Miller, actor, comedian, and host of This Week with Larry Miller“Matus’s book is anything but bland. He guides us through the history of how this colorless drink became the most popular tipple in America by mixing a cocktail of anthropological insight and reportorial legwork, dashed with a perfect measure of tongue-in-cheek wit.”—Max Watman, author of Harvest and Chasing the White Dog“With a business writer’s acumen, Victorino Matus carefully brings the cloudy world of the international vodka industry into focus. Both millionaire distillers and mom-and-pop operations invite him inside their world, where he explores super premiums, celebrity endorsements, the flavor craze, and the seamier side of the industry. Part history lesson and part marketing examination, Vodka will make you think twice the next time you look at a bottle of it.”—Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, author of Under the Table“Vodka comes alive in the hands of Victorino Matus, who blends historical background with pop culture and weaves together a cast of characters ranging from the czars of Russia and James Bond to Dan Aykroyd and P. Diddy. This book will please casual reader