There's an interesting article on the 20/20 website about the results of a vodka taste-test. They had a panel of vodka drinkers taste five premium vodkas neat, including Ketel One, Belvedere, Hangar One, Stoli Elit, and Grey Goose. In addition, the panelists tasted run-of-the-mill Smirnoff.
In an apparent victory for luxury marketing over taste, all six tasters uniformly hated Grey Goose, which most had claimed as their preferred vodka. Unsurprisingly (to me at least) my beloved Hangar One did well in the "neat" test. At the distillery, you taste the vodka in exactly the same way: straight and at room temperature, a perfect opportunity to pick up on the fruity tones from the Viogner grapes Hangar One is made from.
When it came to tasting vodkas in a cocktail (in this case a Sex & The City-inspired Cosmopolitan) tasters had an even tougher time picking out their proclaimed favorites. The article unfortunately doesn't offer any numeric breakdown of the results, but it's implied that none of the tasters were able to identify their preferred brand. Given that the cocktail they chose incorporates cranberry and lime juices, as well as a sticky-sweet orange liqueur, I'm not surprised by that, either.
Had they been tasting vodka & tonics, or even a classic gimlet, I'm sure the differences between vodkas would have been more noticeable, although that still doesn't mean Grey Goose would have won.
The 20/20 website suggests that the moral of the story is that well vodka is just as good as premium, but what I take from it is that most people are buying marketing hype, not a vodka that they actually appreciate for its own qualities.
