Everything About This Vodka Is Top Shelf
The 13th century town in Slovakia’s Tatra Mountains where Double Cross vodka is made.
Loyal readers will know that while I cover sprits regularly, I rarely drink or endorse vodka, which I consider the lowest common denominator in the spirits world. Since the basic idea behind making vodka is to erase all flavor – the opposite of just about everything else we eat or drink – it seems kind of pointless. Most great spirits have history and strict rules of production – good rum is made from sugarcane, Scotch from malted barley, Bourbon from corn – whereas vodka can be made from virtually anything containing sugar or starch, from potatoes and wheat to beets, grass or soy beans, even maple syrup. Most vodkas are more science project than craft, the result being clear, tasteless, diluted alcohol.
But it does not have to be that way. While vodka can (and usually is) made from inferior ingredients in a highly processed commercial fashion to produce a pedestrian product, there are a handful of producers who take just as much care in every stop of the process as the distillers of other fine spirits, it’s just that they are a lot fewer and farther between. I just found one I am really impressed with, and not merely because it tastes really good. I like everything about Double Cross vodka, from its story to production to ingredients to the bottle. I like the passion, and as vodkas go, Double Cross hit it out of the ballpark.
The company’s co-founders spent four years traipsing across Europe looking for a very particular kind of boutique distillery before they found one – in Slovakia (this is what inspired the name, derived from the unique double cross represented in the Slovak Coat of Arms). This tiny distillery is in the 13th century town of Stará Ľubovňa high in the Tatra Mountains. The water used for Double Cross comes from natural aquifers 200 feet below the surface and the other primary ingredient is not soy beans or beets, but rather 100% organic estate-grown winter wheat. It is distilled seven times and then filtered seven times, using different filtration methods.
The entire front of the metal cap is available for custom engraving for gifts.
The resulting vodka is very clean and light, as might be expected after so many rounds of distillation and filtration, but what is really unusual and impressive is its richness, an almost creamy character that makes you go “mmmm!” when sipping it neat, even at room temperature something very, very few vodkas elicit (the reason Russians traditionally drink straight vodka so cold is to mask the taste). It is light and crisp because of its purity but at the same time full-bodied, again unusual for vodka. I’m not a big fan of vodka cocktails but I tried a couple and the great thing about Double Cross is that it has the body to stand up to mixing but it is so pure it lets the quality of the mixers shine through, making it a perfect choice for the modern ingredient-driven “mixology” cocktail craze.
Then there is the bottle. It is uniquely flat and rectangular, unlike virtually any spirit container on the market, made from high-end French crystal, laser engraved with traditional Slovakian poetry on the back and the Double Cross logo on the front, and topped with a polished metal snap-on lid. Some might argue that packaging is irrelevant to spirits, but that is certainly not true if you are giving it as a gift, and if you are going to give away vodka, it should probably be Double Cross. At around $37, it is pricey for vodka but a bargain compared to almost all other super-premium spirits. The bottle is cool looking, but to make an even better gift, the company offers engraving of the recipient’s name on the metal lid. This is something you just can’t do with the typical screwcap or cork closure and it makes for a really special celebratory touch (instructions for ordering custom engraved bottles are on the Double Cross website). In fact, Double Cross was chosen as the vodka for celebrity gift bags at this year’s Tony Awards.
I’m not the only one who likes this vodka. Double Cross is the sole vodka in history to win double Gold Medals at the ultra-prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Competition for both its taste and packaging. Leading spirits critics Paul Pacault and Anthony Dias Blue both gave it rave reviews, while Wine Enthusiast gave it an almost unheard of for vodka 95 (Superb). But hopefully you heard it here first.
Cheers!
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