February 18, 2019 • 32 mins
The story of vodka is one that’s closely tied to cultural identity for several countries, but where did it originate, and how did it evolve over time? We’ll talk a bit about how vodka is made, where it came from, and how it’s expanded to a global market.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, listeners, You're going to get the same information again
if you listen regularly, But just in case, you want
to make sure everybody knows that we have a little
fun excursion plan to go to Paris. So we are
both incredibly excited about going to Paris. I've been doing
my duo lingo every day. I know, we all know that.
How in spite of my formal French study, I'm really
bad at it. So every morning I'm brushing up to
(00:21):
get ready for this trip. I am too, because mine
is pretty sloppy. My vocabulary is okay, but my grammar
is pretty train ricky. So the good news is, even
if you don't speak a word of French, you're covered.
The way this whole thing is set up, you do
not have to be able to speak French in order
to enjoy the trip. Now we will have local guides
who will be helping us navigate the language, navigate the city,
all of that. It is in June of this year,
(00:43):
which is twenty nineteen. If you come to our website,
which is missed in history dot com, there is a
link up at the top of the menu, or if
you're on a mobile device, if you click the little
menu button. It'll drop down it says Paris trip exclamation point,
and it'll have all the information how to sign up,
how to get in touch with the people who are
run this whole thing. If you have questions, we hope
we see you there because you can join us, and
(01:04):
we'd love for you to Welcome to stuff you missed
in history class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm
Tracy V. Wilson. I'm excited and self serving because today
(01:24):
we're going to talk about my spirit of choice, vodka.
As soon as you told me what you were researching,
I thought this is gonna be Holly's favorite episode ever. Um,
sort of. I mean, we get into some of the
bleak stuff that comes with vodka, so it's not all
fun in games. I certainly enjoy a cocktail, but obviously
(01:45):
we are not advocating over imbibing drink responsibly. We just
want to talk about the history of this drink um
and the story of vodka is one that is really
closely tied to cultural identity for several countries. But we're
gonna examine where it originated and how it evolved over
time and how those identities sort of formed. I bet
when I say vodka and country, people automatically make a connection,
(02:06):
and we'll talk about why that's the case. Uh, We're
going to talk a little bit also about how vodka
is made, and then we'll get into that part about
where it came from and how it has expanded to
become really a global market, focusing on those countries where
it remains and has become most popular. And then we
have to talk about some of the problematic aspects of
(02:27):
vodka's place in the world. But I promise we'll end
in a fairly fun place. Yeah, vodka is a little
unusual and that it can be made from a lot
of different things while still being considered vodka, which isn't
so much the case with a number of other spirits.
There are, of course, a lot of opinions and disagreements
about just how far afield you can go and selecting
(02:49):
the base ingredient while still calling the resulting spirit vodka. Yeah,
this starts some heated debates I discovered in my research. Uh,
it requires a sugar or starch element to begin with,
so most popular in Russia and Poland as well as
other countries kind of in that northern belt are grains,
potatoes or sugar beat molasses as the starting ingredient. Uh.
(03:11):
There is actually an area that's colloquially called the vodka belt,
which stretches from Sweden to Poland, and that produces the
majority of the vodka that is consumed in the European Union.
In other places, though, there's a greater variability, including using
things like corn and fruit, and whether those things should
be considered vodka was the matter of debate for some time.
(03:32):
European Parliament ruled on the matter in two thousand seven,
giving a wider range of options for distillers, all following
under this vodka umbrella, defining vodka as a spirit drink
produced from ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin. Yeah, you can,
even if you're feeling very very ambitious and uh want
to do some some juggling and babysitting, You could even
(03:55):
start a vodka from just sugar, although it's not really
the recommended for general making, is my understanding. I have
never distilled vodka myself, so I'm going by what I
have read. Uh. That ruling that we just talked about
was unsurprisingly not entirely popular for vodka purists, it really
signaled a degradation to the spirit, and the Finnish politician
(04:18):
Alexander Stubb made the case that vodka should be more
specifically defined. He said at that time, quote, we have
made vodka out of potato and grain for over five
hundred years. When we became EU members in we were
told that vodka would have a tight definition, just like rum,
just like whiskey, just like grappa. We don't want vodka
(04:39):
to be some kind of alcoholic waste basket. I really
like the idea that like it sounds almost like they're
they're becoming. Part of the EU was in some ways
contingent on the definition of vodka. Yes, that was definitely
part of what they were they were agreeing to is
that voda I would have this this rigorous, fairly rigorous
(05:03):
standard applied to it. And that didn't really pan out. Now.
The reason that the rules of what could be used
to produce vodka were relaxed was that vodka was already
being made from a variety of ingredients of distilleries all
over Europe, and excluding the producers that used alternates to
grain and potatoes could have led to a trade war
countries outside of the EU were making vodka out of
(05:25):
all kinds of things, and so had the ruling had
taken a more strict stance, that would have opened a
huge can of worms in terms of the global spirits market. Yeah.
So if you would imagine trying to put this in
sort of real terms instead of just theoreticals, if you
went into your local liquor store today to buy vodka
(05:46):
and you see all of the offerings, and then something
like this had happened and some people in the world said, no, no,
that thing you've been buying is vodka for X number
of years is no longer vodka. Like, it would just
be a little bit of chaos, uh, into of how
manufacturers labeled things. I imagine there would be pushedback because
people wouldn't want to change the identities of the products
(06:08):
they had been making for a long time. It really
just would have been an absolute chaotic miss uh. Incidentally,
in the US, vodka is legally defined in ultra broad
terms as quote neutral spirits so distilled or so treated
after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be
without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color. That is pretty.
(06:31):
It's so so broad and nebulous yet regardless of whether
the primary ingredient is an old school traditional take or
one that falls under the wider rules. After the fermenting
ingredient is selected, it goes through fermentation. The base material
is crushed, blended with water, and heated, which turns the
start into sugar. That result is combined with yeast, and
(06:55):
then the fluid is distilled from the combined mixture. So alcohol,
of course boils more quickly than water, so the alcohol
component in that mixture vaporizes more quickly than the water
in the mix, and that vapor is captured, excluding the
very first and last vapors of the batch. And next
that vapor is then condensed into a very potent alcohol,
(07:15):
and then that alcohol is combined again with water to
produce the final product, vodka. That's the very basic process.
If you've completed those steps, you have what could technically
be called vodka, but it can be and usually is
further refined and process to alter the taste and the purity.
Filtering it through charcoal, lava, linen, or a number of
(07:39):
other substances, or performing multiple distillations will make the spirit
cleaner and purer and also remove virtually all of the taste. Yeah,
if you go on a an online splunking expedition to
see what people have used to filter vodka, you will
find everything from like diamond dust to two pieces of cloth.
(08:00):
And for something that becomes part of their brand identity
or if they're doing like small batch artisanal stuff, it's
part of their thing that they're they're creating new ways
to do it. And of course, uh, flavored vodka is
very popular and the flavor has to be added after
all of these other steps. This is often done at
the production level, but there are also plenty of consumers
(08:21):
who like to add their own flavor infusions to plain
vodka for custom flavor. So I'm sure if you have
friends who drink, you know somebody who has been Like,
I infused my vodka with jolly ranchers, or with apples,
or with any number of other I've had friends who
have done it with jelly beans. The result was delicious. Uh,
it just depends on what you like. There are consumers
(08:45):
and connoisseurs who desire a vodka that still tastes at
least a little bit like its original ingredients, rather than
having a post distillation added flavor. Some artisanal vodka producers
use small copper moonshine stills and that of the stills
that are used in larger production setups because the resulting
spirit retains some of those component tastes. Yeah, if you
(09:07):
want your vodka to taste like a little like the
wheat or the potato or whatever was used initially, then
that is probably a better way to achieve it. Quality
standards for vodka are actually a really tricky topic because
there aren't any that are universally recognized. Uh. Some countries,
such as Poland, defined quality by purity. There are other
(09:30):
municipalities that categorize simply by alcohol content, like what percentage
of the resulting spirit is alcohol? Uh. There's also marketing
in the mix playing apart, with some distillers touting the
purity of the water that they use as the ultimate
determinant of quality. We're about to dive in so where
all of this vodka production started, or at least where
(09:51):
people think it started. But first we will take a
break to hear from one of the sponsors that keeps
the show going. While the identity of vodka today is
one of an intoxicant, initially, it's believed that it was
developed for medicinal use, but it's exact point of origin
(10:14):
is lost to time and is consequently argued by various
countries wishing to claim ownership of the world's most popular spirit.
Russia and Poland remain locked in their ongoing argument over
the matter, both using language is evidence. So the Russian
word for water is vota with a V. The Polish
word for water is vota with a W. It's a
(10:36):
very subtle difference. I'm probably not enunciating it in a
way that makes that that difference apparent to native speakers,
but they do sound very similar, uh, particularly to Western ears.
And proponents of the Polish origins of vodka say that
the word vodka with a W spelled the W instead
of a V, appeared in print before vodka with a V,
(10:57):
and thus it must be Polish in origin. There are
some additional elements in this whole Russia versus Poland debate
on where vodka came from. A Polish drink called gor
zolka has existed since the eleventh century, and there have
been some assertions that that's the original proto vodka, but
the counter argument is that the historic drink of gorge
(11:20):
yolka is a more general undefined alcoholic spirit and not
really anything that can be definitively linked to vodka. Ukraine
also has a claim to vodka's birthplace because that area
produced the most grains in the region in the fifteenth century,
so it would make sense that grain based alcohol originated there.
And there is even the possibility, truly that vodka actually
(11:42):
first entered the region from somewhere else, and that locals
then figured out how to make their own. We know
that vodka as we know it originated somewhere in eastern Europe,
but whether that's in modern Ukraine, Russia, Poland, or Belarus,
we don't really know. The whole region is inhospitable to
rapes as a crop, so inventive folks came up with
(12:02):
new ways to make alcohol. The prevailing theory is that
we have monks to thank for it. This is true
with the number of other alcohols. They needed a spirit
to use as a sedative and disinfectant in the communities
where they worked, and they turned to wheat to get it. Yeah,
so that's why it kind of has those origins as
a medicinal. In the fourteen hundreds, vodka production became more
(12:25):
refined and it also branched out to use other grains.
Early vodkas were most likely quite sharp, having a very
unpleasant flavor. They weren't doing all of that refining and
filtering that we would do today, so flavoring started to
be added in order to help make it more palatable. Fruit, honey,
and spices came into the picture. But in making vodka
(12:48):
more tasty, distillers helped to shift it away from simply
medicinal use to recreational because then it started to be yummy,
and that shift in identity to a beverage from a
medicine lead to more ernamentation and innovation. Vodka stayed largely
in Northern Europe for a while, but eventually it began
to spread. Like other products we've talked about as shipping
(13:09):
and industry group, vodka was able to travel farther and
farther away from its point of origin. But even so
there was still a lot of cool stuff going on
in that sort of cradle where it first came about.
In Poland, in particular, herbal vodkas were developed to treat
all manner of ailments and concerns in the sixteenth century,
and it was also in Poland the potatoes were first
(13:29):
used in fermentation to create vodka, and Polish distillers continued
to drive the exploration of flavorings and tweaks to distilling
methods well into the nineteenth century. But vodka is often
linked with Russia and Russian cultural identity, and that's due
in part how quickly I'm In the Third of Russia,
also known as I'm In the Great, established vodka as
(13:50):
a key revenue source in the country. In fourteen seventy four,
he started taxing vodka and set up a government based
monopoly on the beverage, and that set the stage for
his successor, I'm In the Fourth, known as I'm In
the Terrible, to continue manipulating the flow of vodka to
suit his own desires. Ivan the Fourth went so far
as to exclude most of his people from having access
(14:13):
to vodka. He set up a new social class of
loyal favorites, and only they could have vodka, and in
this move he redistributed land to them and also turned
his back on the nobility that had existed before this restructure.
He also used vodka to keep people loyal to him,
because cross the czar and you would lose your drinking privileges.
(14:33):
Other Russian leaders similarly used vodka as a means to
reward their favorites and to intoxicate guests so that they
would tell state secrets, and in the case of Peter
the Great, force enemies to drink until they collapsed. But
it was Catherine the Second, also known as Katherine the Great,
who instituted changes that once again put vodka in the
glasses in the cups of common people. Under her rule,
(14:55):
the vodka monopoly ended and more distillers were licensed to
produce the spirit. The cau of vodka were also regulated
to keep prices reasonable, but this often led to the
dilution of the product on a part of the producers. Yeah,
if the costs were going to be capped at a
pretty low amount, they were like, well, we're going to
stretch our product then. Uh. This also led to vodka
(15:17):
quality being seen as a shorthand way to identify one status.
So even though they had taken away the the access
through the hierarchy, it's sort of built itself again in
a new way. The wealthiest households began distilling their own
vodkas with an array of expensive flavorings and spices, and
this was to maintain their distance from peasants in the
(15:38):
eyes of guests. Even the potency of the perfect vodka
was scientifically measured by the Russian scientist Dmitri Mentally, if
you believe that myth that name sounds familiar, it's because
his published work Tentative System of Elements as the foundation
of the periodic Table of the Elements. But before that,
his dissertation A Discourse on the Combination of Alcohol and
(16:00):
Water is said to have established thirty eight percent alcohol
by volume as the best proportion for vodka. In fact,
he was working with theoreticals and alcohols and much higher
concentrations than that. None of it had anything to do
with setting a gold standard for vodka. His connection to
vodka has been mythologized a lot over the years. It's
(16:21):
easy to find assertions that he invented vodka. Obviously he
did not do that, or that he served on the
state's regulatory commission and was tasked with implementing rules for
the perfect vodka. He did serve on a government weights
and measures agency, but he wasn't given any kind of
mandate to codify vodka production. Just the same, his story
(16:42):
used in various advertisements and spread throughout the Internet has
added to this perception that Russia is the epicenter of
all things vodka. Yeah. The trick there is that at
least I could not find an English translation of that
dissertation that he wrote, so it's very easy for people
to claim what is in it. Yet, so it really
really does spread like wildfire. I'd read that dissertation, though,
(17:05):
I would do. Uh. In the eighteen sixties, Pyotr A.
Smyrnov founded a vodka company in Moscow which became the
favored source of the spirit for the country's royals, and
it is now one of the most common brands in
the world, and it continues that link between Russia and
vodka in the minds of consumers everywhere. Under the Bolsheviks
in the nineteens, alcohol was outlawed. When the Soviet Union
(17:29):
was established in Nino, mild alcoholic drinks were once again
allowed to be sold, and in vodka was again legalized
at normal proof. When Joseph Stalin gained power in the
nineteen thirties, he had state run distilleries increased production to
generate revenue, even though he knew there was a real
problem with alcoholism in the country. Yeah, we're going to
(17:49):
talk about that again in just a little while. But
though some temperance efforts started after Stalin died, drinking remained
a problem, and it wasn't until the nineteen eighties under
Gorbachev that temperance efforts got a real boost and the
government made a concerted effort to get the entire country
on board. And while the programs that were initiated during
(18:10):
this time did curtail drinking to some degree and improve
overall health statistics of the population, eventually public sentiment turned
against it. Next up, we're going to talk about how
vodka became one of the most popular liquors in the
United States, But first we will have a quick sponsor break.
(18:34):
Uh surprise, the US is the world's second greatest consumer
of vodka after Russia. That may or may not surprise you.
I found it a little surprising. Vodka didn't really get
a serious place in drinking state side though until after prohibition.
Prior to that, there was just a smattering of mediocre
vodka options available, and it really didn't catch on in
(18:54):
any sort of significant way. In the nineteen thirties, the
Russian immigrant named Rudolph Kunnitt, who had purchased the rights
to use the smeared off name started selling better vodka
in the United States than had been available previously. His
Connecticut distillery struggled until the end of that decade when
it was purchased on behalf of Hubland's Liquor Company by
(19:15):
John G. Martin. Hublands was absorbed by a larger company,
but Martin had wisely made sure that he retained the
rights to the smeared off name. Yeah, he had been
an executive with Hublands and uh he had had written
that in smartly where he got some rights for distribution.
But Martin didn't figure out a way to capitalize on
his rights to the smearing off name until when he
(19:38):
and his friend and tavern owner came up with the
combination of ginger beer and vodka with lemon or lime
juice in a copper mug. Uh. This has its own
mythology around it. Where it happened in l A, which
is where his friend's tavern was, versus it happened in
New York and it only took off in l A.
And that one of them had too much ginger beer
(19:59):
and one of them had too much vodka, and it
was almost a Reese's cup situation, and we don't really know,
but he they he is completely recognized he and his
friend as originating the Moscow mule uh. And once that
drink was born, it finally made drinkers in the United
States embrace vodka, at least until World War Two. After
(20:20):
the war, for a while, vodka became sort of spirit
non grata in the US as the Cold War began
and all things associated with the Soviet Union reviewed through
that lens. It didn't go away completely and Martin was
still concocting other cocktails with vodka, but it really it
kind of had a big spike in in popularity and
then a big drop off. Vodka's reputation perked up once
(20:42):
Sean Connery ordered a vodka martini and dr No in
nineteen sixty two, but then it really got a boost
when President Richard Nixon, after visiting the Soviet Union, approved
business between Pepsicola and the USSR and exchanged for assistance
and setting up a pepsi factory in the Soviet Union.
The US business was paid in stolech Nia vodka, which
(21:04):
made the soda giant the stolen distributor in the US.
With the backing of a massive Kola brand, vodka became
the most popular spirit in the US in nine Vodka
remains one of the most popular liquors in the United
States and smeared off as the most popular brand. Yeah.
If you look at like year to year top ten
(21:25):
uh spirits in the US, vodka is almost always in
the top two and usually it is um smearnoff. It
shifts a little bit, but I think whiskey kind of
stays at the top, or has for the last several
years anyway. Um, but that's all fun and games. But
(21:45):
we have to acknowledge that vodka has a pretty dark
side to its history as well. There have certainly been
plenty of issues that stemmed from over indulgence in and
addiction to alcohol in the world's ongoing story. For example,
in the late night eighteenth century, Russia was in the
middle of a real crisis of alcoholism. It was so
bad that it threatened the labor pool and caused outcry
(22:08):
from activist groups and churches and medical professionals. Eventually, Zar
Alexander the Third couldn't ignore the problem any longer and
limited the production of vodka, put regulations in place to
mandate quality and formed a Temperance Society that touted the
idea of drinking in moderation, despite the fact that the
name of the society, which was the Guardianship of Public Sobriety,
(22:30):
might suggest that it would be against the drink altogether.
To be clear, though Alexander the Third himself was a drinker, Yeah,
he was definitely responding to outside pressures. He was not like, hey,
we should cut back on drinking in the country because
he loved to drink. The state also started a program
to boost non alcoholic entertainments as a means to curtail drinking.
(22:51):
Free theater and concerts, as well as adult education offerings
and other leisure incentives were offered, but none of this
really worked at all. Regulations did not stop illicit liquor
sales and the production of inferior product, and this problem
with alcoholism persisted into the Russo Japanese War and actually
caused Russia battles, backing them into a corner and putting
(23:14):
them in a really weak position for brokering a treaty. Additionally,
the Czar's decision to ban alcohol in an effort to
help the troops stay on task for that conflict meant
that a huge source of tax revenue was lost in
the process, and all of that was before the twentieth
century efforts to sober up the country that we mentioned
earlier in a study titled Alcohol and Mortality was conducted
(23:37):
at the University of Toronto, and it featured some really
grim data. The authors of the paper, Jurgen rem and
Kevin D. Shield, outline the fact that more than two
hundred different diseases are linked to alcohol, but their research
focuses on cancer, liver, cirrhosis, and injury, and their research
indicated that in four of all deaths globally from those
(24:00):
diseases were attributable to alcohol consumption that same year, alcohol
consumption resulted in an average percentage of years lost of
four point three. Those numbers increased as compared to similar
data from This is not in your outline, but I
was reading a thing recently that was a hypothesis that
one of the reasons that breast cancer rates are lower
(24:22):
in Utah is because of Utah's more stringent alcohol laws.
I cannot speak to that because I have not read it. Yeah,
I mean, it's one of those things, right, we definitely
have to kind of acknowledge that, uh, consuming alcohol comes
with inherent danger. There was a recent study I didn't
put it in my notes either, so I'm quoting it
(24:44):
kind of out of the air that basically I think
it was from or twenty seventeen that was, like, really,
the safest way to consume alcohol is to not consume alcohol,
because even though there are and it's outlined in the
RAM paper, there are some specific health issues that alcohol
(25:05):
and moderation can actually help, but for the most part,
like the dangers are far worse than any of them.
So just things to consider. We're not telling people to
go out and drink a ton of vodka. Um, let's
all be grown ups. Uh we and we don't want
to minimize also or downplay the issue of over indulgence
or addiction. Uh. But that would be a really downer
(25:26):
place to end this episode. So instead, I thought it
might be fun to close with a few anecdotes and
facts about vodka that are just sort of fascinating on
their own. We mentioned earlier that vodka was probably originally
concocted for medicinal use, but there are still plenty of
sort of old wives remedies that make use of it.
Alcohol infused with St. John's work and sage is believed
(25:48):
to have had curative powers as a liniment. Vodka served
with black pepper is an old Russian cold remedy, and
vodka fumes from infused fabrics are believed by some to
cure everything from muscle aches to ear problems. It's also
used as an astringent cleanser to clean out pours and
as a disinfectant for wounds. It can be used for
(26:08):
cleaning surfaces as well as humans, as a polished for mirrors,
chrome tile and the like. Yeah, it definitely will kill
all your stuff. My favorite use for vodka which I
didn't put in here, but it is. Here's the trick
I give to you that I learned from working in
costume shops forever. If you get cheap, cheap vodka and
you put it in a spritzer bottle, Uh, if you
(26:31):
can't make it to a dry cleaner, that will freshen
up your clothes, kill any bacteria that are causing odor,
and help you get through to your next thing. Yeah,
this is why I have in my bathroom under the
sink there are two spray bottles, both clearly marked so
I don't confuse them. One contains peroxide, the other contains vodka. Yeah.
I at one point I was helping out as like
(26:53):
a really low level mouse in a costume shop that
was serving a ballet company, and they're Uh. Their costume
director was always walking around with the bottle of vodka
and spritsing things to make sure that they did not
smell bad, especially if you were doing like a matinee
performance in an evening, and there was no way to
really do serious cleaning between the two in terms of time,
(27:14):
especially when you're trying to prep things for a full
quarter ballet. Uh. A little vodka spirits will help perk
things up and make it not smell bad. Uh. There's
also another little household hind which is that adding vodka
and sugar to water at the base of Christmas trees
or two vases of flowers is thought to prolong the
life of the plants. I have never tried that one
me neither. Just don't make your don't make your Christmas
(27:37):
tree water accidentally flammable. In the eighteen sixties, the smear
Knof distillery added annis and egg whites to combine with
the vodka to make it more delicious. I would like
to disagree smear enough about whether that would be more delicious.
Is it the liquorice or the egg white etic I
(27:58):
love liquorice, so this sounds still light. You can have
if you've never had like egg white foam in an
alcoholic drink, and that may sound weird to you. I
encourage you, if you are of legal drinking age, to
try it because it's quite interesting. There's a there's some
good tiki drinks to feature it as well. Uh, this
is another one that I love. Inn. The Bullshoy Theater
in Moscow, which was originally built in seventeen seventy six,
(28:21):
went through a major spruce up and renovation. It actually
started far before eleven, but that's when it finished after
it had been neglected for several decades. But when it
came to the finishing touches performed by guilders, they turned
to a medieval recipe. It turns out to make perfect
gold guilt, egg whites have to be first kept in
a warm room for forty days, and then those egg
(28:43):
whites are mixed with a clay, and then the magic ingredient,
vodka is added to that mixture, which is then used
to apply gold leaf and according to Mikhail Sudarov, who
works for the company that handled this refurbishment project, quote,
this method keeps gold from being overused and helps retain
its luster for fifty to seventy years. So, in essence,
(29:04):
the same kind of thing that makes baked bread look
shiny and delicious will also make your gold gleam and
gleam in the light. Due to an uptick in specific diets,
there are now vodka's marketed that fit within various eating restrictions,
So any domestically made non flavored, grain or potato based
vodka in the US is considered kosher. Some brands made
(29:27):
outside the US to use to seek Kosher certification from
the Orthodox Union, including stolach Naya and Crystal Head, and
some vodkas include messaging on the label about their gluten
free status. Yeah, if you have dietary restrictions, there is
probably a company out there making vodka that wants to
make sure you know you can drink whatever it is
(29:48):
they're making. Um. And because I love talking about art,
we're gonna end with innovative Norwegian artist Zebjorn sand And.
When sound was visiting Antarctica and was inspired to hate
using the watercolors that he had brought with him. He
ran into a little bit of a problem, which is
his paints were freezing before he could get anything done.
And his Russian guides suggested vodka, and he found success
(30:11):
when he mixed that with his pigments, and he called
the resulting technique vodka color. I love a little innovation.
I feel like vodka is sort of one of those
universal solvent substances because it does get you still medicinely,
still for cleaning and a stringent needs, and also in
art and also to make things beautiful and guilt edged
(30:34):
with gold fabulous. Again, don't overindulge. Please be careful with
your vodka consumption, or don't drink at all. If that
is the choice that you would rather make. Yeah, totally fine.
Uh what whatever works for you and is best for
your health. I feel a little like Steve Rule. But
when I'm back up off of that, I have a
(30:57):
postcard this week. But here's the problem. I'm going to
read it, but I don't know who it's from because
it appears they did not sign it. I think they
just forgot because it's a lovely little note. Uh. But
if you were the person that sent this to us.
Thank you, and I'm sorry we can't say your name
on the air because I don't see it anywhere on
(31:17):
the card, although they did put a little additional thing
that says thank you for being awesome up in the corner,
but not their name, but they wrote, Hey ladies. I
visited San Francisco in December. I just had to go
to the trolley Car Museum, which Tracy talked about in
her San Francisco trolley Car episode that she wrote. I
talked about it as well, but she did the research
on that one. My boyfriend was hesitant to go, but
(31:39):
he uh literally didn't stop talking about it afterwards. We
also visited Quite Tower and learned about Lily, so I
thought i'd share. And the postcard is a picture of
Lily Hitchcock quoit uh and the caption on the back
of the postcard says, seven year old Lily Hitchcock's life
was saved by volunteers of Knickerbocker Engine Live Ever after
(32:01):
Lily was their patron and honorary member of the company.
Lily's bequest for San Francisco's beautification built Quite Tower. Uh.
So that's a cool little combo of visiting a place
we've talked about on the show and giving us a
little mini education via postcard. So thank you, thank you,
thank you to whatever wonderful person sent us this. Uh.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(32:24):
You can also find us everywhere on social media as
missed in History, and you can go to missed in
History dot com to see all of the episodes of
the show that have ever existed, including show notes on
any of the ones Tracy and I have worked on.
If you would like to subscribe to the show, that
sounds like a grand idea to me. You can do
that through the I Heart Radio app, the Apple podcast player,
or wherever you get your podcasts. For more on this
(32:50):
and thousands of other topics, visit housetop works dot com.
Hey, listeners, You're going to get the same information again
if you listen regularly, But just in case, you want
to make sure everybody knows that we have a little
fun excursion plan to go to Paris. So we are
both incredibly excited about going to Paris. I've been doing
my duo lingo every day. I know, we all know that.
How in spite of my formal French study, I'm really
bad at it. So every morning I'm brushing up to
(00:21):
get ready for this trip. I am too, because mine
is pretty sloppy. My vocabulary is okay, but my grammar
is pretty train ricky. So the good news is, even
if you don't speak a word of French, you're covered.
The way this whole thing is set up, you do
not have to be able to speak French in order
to enjoy the trip. Now we will have local guides
who will be helping us navigate the language, navigate the city,
all of that. It is in June of this year,
(00:43):
which is twenty nineteen. If you come to our website,
which is missed in history dot com, there is a
link up at the top of the menu, or if
you're on a mobile device, if you click the little
menu button. It'll drop down it says Paris trip exclamation point,
and it'll have all the information how to sign up,
how to get in touch with the people who are
run this whole thing. If you have questions, we hope
we see you there because you can join us, and
(01:04):
we'd love for you to Welcome to stuff you missed
in history class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm
Tracy V. Wilson. I'm excited and self serving because today
(01:24):
we're going to talk about my spirit of choice, vodka.
As soon as you told me what you were researching,
I thought this is gonna be Holly's favorite episode ever. Um,
sort of. I mean, we get into some of the
bleak stuff that comes with vodka, so it's not all
fun in games. I certainly enjoy a cocktail, but obviously
(01:45):
we are not advocating over imbibing drink responsibly. We just
want to talk about the history of this drink um
and the story of vodka is one that is really
closely tied to cultural identity for several countries. But we're
gonna examine where it originated and how it evolved over
time and how those identities sort of formed. I bet
when I say vodka and country, people automatically make a connection,
(02:06):
and we'll talk about why that's the case. Uh, We're
going to talk a little bit also about how vodka
is made, and then we'll get into that part about
where it came from and how it has expanded to
become really a global market, focusing on those countries where
it remains and has become most popular. And then we
have to talk about some of the problematic aspects of
(02:27):
vodka's place in the world. But I promise we'll end
in a fairly fun place. Yeah, vodka is a little
unusual and that it can be made from a lot
of different things while still being considered vodka, which isn't
so much the case with a number of other spirits.
There are, of course, a lot of opinions and disagreements
about just how far afield you can go and selecting
(02:49):
the base ingredient while still calling the resulting spirit vodka. Yeah,
this starts some heated debates I discovered in my research. Uh,
it requires a sugar or starch element to begin with,
so most popular in Russia and Poland as well as
other countries kind of in that northern belt are grains,
potatoes or sugar beat molasses as the starting ingredient. Uh.
(03:11):
There is actually an area that's colloquially called the vodka belt,
which stretches from Sweden to Poland, and that produces the
majority of the vodka that is consumed in the European Union.
In other places, though, there's a greater variability, including using
things like corn and fruit, and whether those things should
be considered vodka was the matter of debate for some time.
(03:32):
European Parliament ruled on the matter in two thousand seven,
giving a wider range of options for distillers, all following
under this vodka umbrella, defining vodka as a spirit drink
produced from ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin. Yeah, you can,
even if you're feeling very very ambitious and uh want
to do some some juggling and babysitting, You could even
(03:55):
start a vodka from just sugar, although it's not really
the recommended for general making, is my understanding. I have
never distilled vodka myself, so I'm going by what I
have read. Uh. That ruling that we just talked about
was unsurprisingly not entirely popular for vodka purists, it really
signaled a degradation to the spirit, and the Finnish politician
(04:18):
Alexander Stubb made the case that vodka should be more
specifically defined. He said at that time, quote, we have
made vodka out of potato and grain for over five
hundred years. When we became EU members in we were
told that vodka would have a tight definition, just like rum,
just like whiskey, just like grappa. We don't want vodka
(04:39):
to be some kind of alcoholic waste basket. I really
like the idea that like it sounds almost like they're
they're becoming. Part of the EU was in some ways
contingent on the definition of vodka. Yes, that was definitely
part of what they were they were agreeing to is
that voda I would have this this rigorous, fairly rigorous
(05:03):
standard applied to it. And that didn't really pan out. Now.
The reason that the rules of what could be used
to produce vodka were relaxed was that vodka was already
being made from a variety of ingredients of distilleries all
over Europe, and excluding the producers that used alternates to
grain and potatoes could have led to a trade war
countries outside of the EU were making vodka out of
(05:25):
all kinds of things, and so had the ruling had
taken a more strict stance, that would have opened a
huge can of worms in terms of the global spirits market. Yeah.
So if you would imagine trying to put this in
sort of real terms instead of just theoreticals, if you
went into your local liquor store today to buy vodka
(05:46):
and you see all of the offerings, and then something
like this had happened and some people in the world said, no, no,
that thing you've been buying is vodka for X number
of years is no longer vodka. Like, it would just
be a little bit of chaos, uh, into of how
manufacturers labeled things. I imagine there would be pushedback because
people wouldn't want to change the identities of the products
(06:08):
they had been making for a long time. It really
just would have been an absolute chaotic miss uh. Incidentally,
in the US, vodka is legally defined in ultra broad
terms as quote neutral spirits so distilled or so treated
after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be
without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color. That is pretty.
(06:31):
It's so so broad and nebulous yet regardless of whether
the primary ingredient is an old school traditional take or
one that falls under the wider rules. After the fermenting
ingredient is selected, it goes through fermentation. The base material
is crushed, blended with water, and heated, which turns the
start into sugar. That result is combined with yeast, and
(06:55):
then the fluid is distilled from the combined mixture. So alcohol,
of course boils more quickly than water, so the alcohol
component in that mixture vaporizes more quickly than the water
in the mix, and that vapor is captured, excluding the
very first and last vapors of the batch. And next
that vapor is then condensed into a very potent alcohol,
(07:15):
and then that alcohol is combined again with water to
produce the final product, vodka. That's the very basic process.
If you've completed those steps, you have what could technically
be called vodka, but it can be and usually is
further refined and process to alter the taste and the purity.
Filtering it through charcoal, lava, linen, or a number of
(07:39):
other substances, or performing multiple distillations will make the spirit
cleaner and purer and also remove virtually all of the taste. Yeah,
if you go on a an online splunking expedition to
see what people have used to filter vodka, you will
find everything from like diamond dust to two pieces of cloth.
(08:00):
And for something that becomes part of their brand identity
or if they're doing like small batch artisanal stuff, it's
part of their thing that they're they're creating new ways
to do it. And of course, uh, flavored vodka is
very popular and the flavor has to be added after
all of these other steps. This is often done at
the production level, but there are also plenty of consumers
(08:21):
who like to add their own flavor infusions to plain
vodka for custom flavor. So I'm sure if you have
friends who drink, you know somebody who has been Like,
I infused my vodka with jolly ranchers, or with apples,
or with any number of other I've had friends who
have done it with jelly beans. The result was delicious. Uh,
it just depends on what you like. There are consumers
(08:45):
and connoisseurs who desire a vodka that still tastes at
least a little bit like its original ingredients, rather than
having a post distillation added flavor. Some artisanal vodka producers
use small copper moonshine stills and that of the stills
that are used in larger production setups because the resulting
spirit retains some of those component tastes. Yeah, if you
(09:07):
want your vodka to taste like a little like the
wheat or the potato or whatever was used initially, then
that is probably a better way to achieve it. Quality
standards for vodka are actually a really tricky topic because
there aren't any that are universally recognized. Uh. Some countries,
such as Poland, defined quality by purity. There are other
(09:30):
municipalities that categorize simply by alcohol content, like what percentage
of the resulting spirit is alcohol? Uh. There's also marketing
in the mix playing apart, with some distillers touting the
purity of the water that they use as the ultimate
determinant of quality. We're about to dive in so where
all of this vodka production started, or at least where
(09:51):
people think it started. But first we will take a
break to hear from one of the sponsors that keeps
the show going. While the identity of vodka today is
one of an intoxicant, initially, it's believed that it was
developed for medicinal use, but it's exact point of origin
(10:14):
is lost to time and is consequently argued by various
countries wishing to claim ownership of the world's most popular spirit.
Russia and Poland remain locked in their ongoing argument over
the matter, both using language is evidence. So the Russian
word for water is vota with a V. The Polish
word for water is vota with a W. It's a
(10:36):
very subtle difference. I'm probably not enunciating it in a
way that makes that that difference apparent to native speakers,
but they do sound very similar, uh, particularly to Western ears.
And proponents of the Polish origins of vodka say that
the word vodka with a W spelled the W instead
of a V, appeared in print before vodka with a V,
(10:57):
and thus it must be Polish in origin. There are
some additional elements in this whole Russia versus Poland debate
on where vodka came from. A Polish drink called gor
zolka has existed since the eleventh century, and there have
been some assertions that that's the original proto vodka, but
the counter argument is that the historic drink of gorge
(11:20):
yolka is a more general undefined alcoholic spirit and not
really anything that can be definitively linked to vodka. Ukraine
also has a claim to vodka's birthplace because that area
produced the most grains in the region in the fifteenth century,
so it would make sense that grain based alcohol originated there.
And there is even the possibility, truly that vodka actually
(11:42):
first entered the region from somewhere else, and that locals
then figured out how to make their own. We know
that vodka as we know it originated somewhere in eastern Europe,
but whether that's in modern Ukraine, Russia, Poland, or Belarus,
we don't really know. The whole region is inhospitable to
rapes as a crop, so inventive folks came up with
(12:02):
new ways to make alcohol. The prevailing theory is that
we have monks to thank for it. This is true
with the number of other alcohols. They needed a spirit
to use as a sedative and disinfectant in the communities
where they worked, and they turned to wheat to get it. Yeah,
so that's why it kind of has those origins as
a medicinal. In the fourteen hundreds, vodka production became more
(12:25):
refined and it also branched out to use other grains.
Early vodkas were most likely quite sharp, having a very
unpleasant flavor. They weren't doing all of that refining and
filtering that we would do today, so flavoring started to
be added in order to help make it more palatable. Fruit, honey,
and spices came into the picture. But in making vodka
(12:48):
more tasty, distillers helped to shift it away from simply
medicinal use to recreational because then it started to be yummy,
and that shift in identity to a beverage from a
medicine lead to more ernamentation and innovation. Vodka stayed largely
in Northern Europe for a while, but eventually it began
to spread. Like other products we've talked about as shipping
(13:09):
and industry group, vodka was able to travel farther and
farther away from its point of origin. But even so
there was still a lot of cool stuff going on
in that sort of cradle where it first came about.
In Poland, in particular, herbal vodkas were developed to treat
all manner of ailments and concerns in the sixteenth century,
and it was also in Poland the potatoes were first
(13:29):
used in fermentation to create vodka, and Polish distillers continued
to drive the exploration of flavorings and tweaks to distilling
methods well into the nineteenth century. But vodka is often
linked with Russia and Russian cultural identity, and that's due
in part how quickly I'm In the Third of Russia,
also known as I'm In the Great, established vodka as
(13:50):
a key revenue source in the country. In fourteen seventy four,
he started taxing vodka and set up a government based
monopoly on the beverage, and that set the stage for
his successor, I'm In the Fourth, known as I'm In
the Terrible, to continue manipulating the flow of vodka to
suit his own desires. Ivan the Fourth went so far
as to exclude most of his people from having access
(14:13):
to vodka. He set up a new social class of
loyal favorites, and only they could have vodka, and in
this move he redistributed land to them and also turned
his back on the nobility that had existed before this restructure.
He also used vodka to keep people loyal to him,
because cross the czar and you would lose your drinking privileges.
(14:33):
Other Russian leaders similarly used vodka as a means to
reward their favorites and to intoxicate guests so that they
would tell state secrets, and in the case of Peter
the Great, force enemies to drink until they collapsed. But
it was Catherine the Second, also known as Katherine the Great,
who instituted changes that once again put vodka in the
glasses in the cups of common people. Under her rule,
(14:55):
the vodka monopoly ended and more distillers were licensed to
produce the spirit. The cau of vodka were also regulated
to keep prices reasonable, but this often led to the
dilution of the product on a part of the producers. Yeah,
if the costs were going to be capped at a
pretty low amount, they were like, well, we're going to
stretch our product then. Uh. This also led to vodka
(15:17):
quality being seen as a shorthand way to identify one status.
So even though they had taken away the the access
through the hierarchy, it's sort of built itself again in
a new way. The wealthiest households began distilling their own
vodkas with an array of expensive flavorings and spices, and
this was to maintain their distance from peasants in the
(15:38):
eyes of guests. Even the potency of the perfect vodka
was scientifically measured by the Russian scientist Dmitri Mentally, if
you believe that myth that name sounds familiar, it's because
his published work Tentative System of Elements as the foundation
of the periodic Table of the Elements. But before that,
his dissertation A Discourse on the Combination of Alcohol and
(16:00):
Water is said to have established thirty eight percent alcohol
by volume as the best proportion for vodka. In fact,
he was working with theoreticals and alcohols and much higher
concentrations than that. None of it had anything to do
with setting a gold standard for vodka. His connection to
vodka has been mythologized a lot over the years. It's
(16:21):
easy to find assertions that he invented vodka. Obviously he
did not do that, or that he served on the
state's regulatory commission and was tasked with implementing rules for
the perfect vodka. He did serve on a government weights
and measures agency, but he wasn't given any kind of
mandate to codify vodka production. Just the same, his story
(16:42):
used in various advertisements and spread throughout the Internet has
added to this perception that Russia is the epicenter of
all things vodka. Yeah. The trick there is that at
least I could not find an English translation of that
dissertation that he wrote, so it's very easy for people
to claim what is in it. Yet, so it really
really does spread like wildfire. I'd read that dissertation, though,
(17:05):
I would do. Uh. In the eighteen sixties, Pyotr A.
Smyrnov founded a vodka company in Moscow which became the
favored source of the spirit for the country's royals, and
it is now one of the most common brands in
the world, and it continues that link between Russia and
vodka in the minds of consumers everywhere. Under the Bolsheviks
in the nineteens, alcohol was outlawed. When the Soviet Union
(17:29):
was established in Nino, mild alcoholic drinks were once again
allowed to be sold, and in vodka was again legalized
at normal proof. When Joseph Stalin gained power in the
nineteen thirties, he had state run distilleries increased production to
generate revenue, even though he knew there was a real
problem with alcoholism in the country. Yeah, we're going to
(17:49):
talk about that again in just a little while. But
though some temperance efforts started after Stalin died, drinking remained
a problem, and it wasn't until the nineteen eighties under
Gorbachev that temperance efforts got a real boost and the
government made a concerted effort to get the entire country
on board. And while the programs that were initiated during
(18:10):
this time did curtail drinking to some degree and improve
overall health statistics of the population, eventually public sentiment turned
against it. Next up, we're going to talk about how
vodka became one of the most popular liquors in the
United States, But first we will have a quick sponsor break.
(18:34):
Uh surprise, the US is the world's second greatest consumer
of vodka after Russia. That may or may not surprise you.
I found it a little surprising. Vodka didn't really get
a serious place in drinking state side though until after prohibition.
Prior to that, there was just a smattering of mediocre
vodka options available, and it really didn't catch on in
(18:54):
any sort of significant way. In the nineteen thirties, the
Russian immigrant named Rudolph Kunnitt, who had purchased the rights
to use the smeared off name started selling better vodka
in the United States than had been available previously. His
Connecticut distillery struggled until the end of that decade when
it was purchased on behalf of Hubland's Liquor Company by
(19:15):
John G. Martin. Hublands was absorbed by a larger company,
but Martin had wisely made sure that he retained the
rights to the smeared off name. Yeah, he had been
an executive with Hublands and uh he had had written
that in smartly where he got some rights for distribution.
But Martin didn't figure out a way to capitalize on
his rights to the smearing off name until when he
(19:38):
and his friend and tavern owner came up with the
combination of ginger beer and vodka with lemon or lime
juice in a copper mug. Uh. This has its own
mythology around it. Where it happened in l A, which
is where his friend's tavern was, versus it happened in
New York and it only took off in l A.
And that one of them had too much ginger beer
(19:59):
and one of them had too much vodka, and it
was almost a Reese's cup situation, and we don't really know,
but he they he is completely recognized he and his
friend as originating the Moscow mule uh. And once that
drink was born, it finally made drinkers in the United
States embrace vodka, at least until World War Two. After
(20:20):
the war, for a while, vodka became sort of spirit
non grata in the US as the Cold War began
and all things associated with the Soviet Union reviewed through
that lens. It didn't go away completely and Martin was
still concocting other cocktails with vodka, but it really it
kind of had a big spike in in popularity and
then a big drop off. Vodka's reputation perked up once
(20:42):
Sean Connery ordered a vodka martini and dr No in
nineteen sixty two, but then it really got a boost
when President Richard Nixon, after visiting the Soviet Union, approved
business between Pepsicola and the USSR and exchanged for assistance
and setting up a pepsi factory in the Soviet Union.
The US business was paid in stolech Nia vodka, which
(21:04):
made the soda giant the stolen distributor in the US.
With the backing of a massive Kola brand, vodka became
the most popular spirit in the US in nine Vodka
remains one of the most popular liquors in the United
States and smeared off as the most popular brand. Yeah.
If you look at like year to year top ten
(21:25):
uh spirits in the US, vodka is almost always in
the top two and usually it is um smearnoff. It
shifts a little bit, but I think whiskey kind of
stays at the top, or has for the last several
years anyway. Um, but that's all fun and games. But
(21:45):
we have to acknowledge that vodka has a pretty dark
side to its history as well. There have certainly been
plenty of issues that stemmed from over indulgence in and
addiction to alcohol in the world's ongoing story. For example,
in the late night eighteenth century, Russia was in the
middle of a real crisis of alcoholism. It was so
bad that it threatened the labor pool and caused outcry
(22:08):
from activist groups and churches and medical professionals. Eventually, Zar
Alexander the Third couldn't ignore the problem any longer and
limited the production of vodka, put regulations in place to
mandate quality and formed a Temperance Society that touted the
idea of drinking in moderation, despite the fact that the
name of the society, which was the Guardianship of Public Sobriety,
(22:30):
might suggest that it would be against the drink altogether.
To be clear, though Alexander the Third himself was a drinker, Yeah,
he was definitely responding to outside pressures. He was not like, hey,
we should cut back on drinking in the country because
he loved to drink. The state also started a program
to boost non alcoholic entertainments as a means to curtail drinking.
(22:51):
Free theater and concerts, as well as adult education offerings
and other leisure incentives were offered, but none of this
really worked at all. Regulations did not stop illicit liquor
sales and the production of inferior product, and this problem
with alcoholism persisted into the Russo Japanese War and actually
caused Russia battles, backing them into a corner and putting
(23:14):
them in a really weak position for brokering a treaty. Additionally,
the Czar's decision to ban alcohol in an effort to
help the troops stay on task for that conflict meant
that a huge source of tax revenue was lost in
the process, and all of that was before the twentieth
century efforts to sober up the country that we mentioned
earlier in a study titled Alcohol and Mortality was conducted
(23:37):
at the University of Toronto, and it featured some really
grim data. The authors of the paper, Jurgen rem and
Kevin D. Shield, outline the fact that more than two
hundred different diseases are linked to alcohol, but their research
focuses on cancer, liver, cirrhosis, and injury, and their research
indicated that in four of all deaths globally from those
(24:00):
diseases were attributable to alcohol consumption that same year, alcohol
consumption resulted in an average percentage of years lost of
four point three. Those numbers increased as compared to similar
data from This is not in your outline, but I
was reading a thing recently that was a hypothesis that
one of the reasons that breast cancer rates are lower
(24:22):
in Utah is because of Utah's more stringent alcohol laws.
I cannot speak to that because I have not read it. Yeah,
I mean, it's one of those things, right, we definitely
have to kind of acknowledge that, uh, consuming alcohol comes
with inherent danger. There was a recent study I didn't
put it in my notes either, so I'm quoting it
(24:44):
kind of out of the air that basically I think
it was from or twenty seventeen that was, like, really,
the safest way to consume alcohol is to not consume alcohol,
because even though there are and it's outlined in the
RAM paper, there are some specific health issues that alcohol
(25:05):
and moderation can actually help, but for the most part,
like the dangers are far worse than any of them.
So just things to consider. We're not telling people to
go out and drink a ton of vodka. Um, let's
all be grown ups. Uh we and we don't want
to minimize also or downplay the issue of over indulgence
or addiction. Uh. But that would be a really downer
(25:26):
place to end this episode. So instead, I thought it
might be fun to close with a few anecdotes and
facts about vodka that are just sort of fascinating on
their own. We mentioned earlier that vodka was probably originally
concocted for medicinal use, but there are still plenty of
sort of old wives remedies that make use of it.
Alcohol infused with St. John's work and sage is believed
(25:48):
to have had curative powers as a liniment. Vodka served
with black pepper is an old Russian cold remedy, and
vodka fumes from infused fabrics are believed by some to
cure everything from muscle aches to ear problems. It's also
used as an astringent cleanser to clean out pours and
as a disinfectant for wounds. It can be used for
(26:08):
cleaning surfaces as well as humans, as a polished for mirrors,
chrome tile and the like. Yeah, it definitely will kill
all your stuff. My favorite use for vodka which I
didn't put in here, but it is. Here's the trick
I give to you that I learned from working in
costume shops forever. If you get cheap, cheap vodka and
you put it in a spritzer bottle, Uh, if you
(26:31):
can't make it to a dry cleaner, that will freshen
up your clothes, kill any bacteria that are causing odor,
and help you get through to your next thing. Yeah,
this is why I have in my bathroom under the
sink there are two spray bottles, both clearly marked so
I don't confuse them. One contains peroxide, the other contains vodka. Yeah.
I at one point I was helping out as like
(26:53):
a really low level mouse in a costume shop that
was serving a ballet company, and they're Uh. Their costume
director was always walking around with the bottle of vodka
and spritsing things to make sure that they did not
smell bad, especially if you were doing like a matinee
performance in an evening, and there was no way to
really do serious cleaning between the two in terms of time,
(27:14):
especially when you're trying to prep things for a full
quarter ballet. Uh. A little vodka spirits will help perk
things up and make it not smell bad. Uh. There's
also another little household hind which is that adding vodka
and sugar to water at the base of Christmas trees
or two vases of flowers is thought to prolong the
life of the plants. I have never tried that one
me neither. Just don't make your don't make your Christmas
(27:37):
tree water accidentally flammable. In the eighteen sixties, the smear
Knof distillery added annis and egg whites to combine with
the vodka to make it more delicious. I would like
to disagree smear enough about whether that would be more delicious.
Is it the liquorice or the egg white etic I
(27:58):
love liquorice, so this sounds still light. You can have
if you've never had like egg white foam in an
alcoholic drink, and that may sound weird to you. I
encourage you, if you are of legal drinking age, to
try it because it's quite interesting. There's a there's some
good tiki drinks to feature it as well. Uh, this
is another one that I love. Inn. The Bullshoy Theater
in Moscow, which was originally built in seventeen seventy six,
(28:21):
went through a major spruce up and renovation. It actually
started far before eleven, but that's when it finished after
it had been neglected for several decades. But when it
came to the finishing touches performed by guilders, they turned
to a medieval recipe. It turns out to make perfect
gold guilt, egg whites have to be first kept in
a warm room for forty days, and then those egg
(28:43):
whites are mixed with a clay, and then the magic ingredient,
vodka is added to that mixture, which is then used
to apply gold leaf and according to Mikhail Sudarov, who
works for the company that handled this refurbishment project, quote,
this method keeps gold from being overused and helps retain
its luster for fifty to seventy years. So, in essence,
(29:04):
the same kind of thing that makes baked bread look
shiny and delicious will also make your gold gleam and
gleam in the light. Due to an uptick in specific diets,
there are now vodka's marketed that fit within various eating restrictions,
So any domestically made non flavored, grain or potato based
vodka in the US is considered kosher. Some brands made
(29:27):
outside the US to use to seek Kosher certification from
the Orthodox Union, including stolach Naya and Crystal Head, and
some vodkas include messaging on the label about their gluten
free status. Yeah, if you have dietary restrictions, there is
probably a company out there making vodka that wants to
make sure you know you can drink whatever it is
(29:48):
they're making. Um. And because I love talking about art,
we're gonna end with innovative Norwegian artist Zebjorn sand And.
When sound was visiting Antarctica and was inspired to hate
using the watercolors that he had brought with him. He
ran into a little bit of a problem, which is
his paints were freezing before he could get anything done.
And his Russian guides suggested vodka, and he found success
(30:11):
when he mixed that with his pigments, and he called
the resulting technique vodka color. I love a little innovation.
I feel like vodka is sort of one of those
universal solvent substances because it does get you still medicinely,
still for cleaning and a stringent needs, and also in
art and also to make things beautiful and guilt edged
(30:34):
with gold fabulous. Again, don't overindulge. Please be careful with
your vodka consumption, or don't drink at all. If that
is the choice that you would rather make. Yeah, totally fine.
Uh what whatever works for you and is best for
your health. I feel a little like Steve Rule. But
when I'm back up off of that, I have a
(30:57):
postcard this week. But here's the problem. I'm going to
read it, but I don't know who it's from because
it appears they did not sign it. I think they
just forgot because it's a lovely little note. Uh. But
if you were the person that sent this to us.
Thank you, and I'm sorry we can't say your name
on the air because I don't see it anywhere on
(31:17):
the card, although they did put a little additional thing
that says thank you for being awesome up in the corner,
but not their name, but they wrote, Hey ladies. I
visited San Francisco in December. I just had to go
to the trolley Car Museum, which Tracy talked about in
her San Francisco trolley Car episode that she wrote. I
talked about it as well, but she did the research
on that one. My boyfriend was hesitant to go, but
(31:39):
he uh literally didn't stop talking about it afterwards. We
also visited Quite Tower and learned about Lily, so I
thought i'd share. And the postcard is a picture of
Lily Hitchcock quoit uh and the caption on the back
of the postcard says, seven year old Lily Hitchcock's life
was saved by volunteers of Knickerbocker Engine Live Ever after
(32:01):
Lily was their patron and honorary member of the company.
Lily's bequest for San Francisco's beautification built Quite Tower. Uh.
So that's a cool little combo of visiting a place
we've talked about on the show and giving us a
little mini education via postcard. So thank you, thank you,
thank you to whatever wonderful person sent us this. Uh.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(32:24):
You can also find us everywhere on social media as
missed in History, and you can go to missed in
History dot com to see all of the episodes of
the show that have ever existed, including show notes on
any of the ones Tracy and I have worked on.
If you would like to subscribe to the show, that
sounds like a grand idea to me. You can do
that through the I Heart Radio app, the Apple podcast player,
or wherever you get your podcasts. For more on this
(32:50):
and thousands of other topics, visit housetop works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.