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Victorino Matus

Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America Hardcover – July 1, 2014

by Victorino Matus (Author)

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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.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Lyons Press
Publication date

July 1, 2014
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

076278699X
ISBN-13

978-0762786992
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Editorial Reviews

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 readers and cocktail geeks alike. Reading Vodka might not be as satisfying as drinking it—but it comes close!”
—Mark Spivak, author of Iconic Spirits and Moonshine Nation

“Matus casts his gimlet eye over a range of brands, from tiny craft distillers to industry giants, and recounts how they've found their place in the crowded vodka ecosystem…And by the end, it's hard to disagree—not just in the sales figures but also in its conquests. Haters will still say there's no craft in vodka, that it's an industrial product. But Mr. Matus convinced me there's true craft here…Vodka didn't conquer America; America conquered vodka.” – The Wall Street Journal

“The whole book is a tour de rires of the American vodka industry. Mr. Matus, with a feature reporter’s eye and a nice, light touch, shows us Vodka USA in all its glory...Literary merits aside, this is a beautiful book. It smells good, too…One can only hope more publishers follow this example.” – The Washington Times

“Vodka is one part intriguing history lesson, one part reporting, and one part percipient marketing study. Suffusing his book with an easy charm and engaging wit, Matus draws the reader in as he charts vodka’s origins and its rise to become America’s top-selling spirit.” --The Federalist

About the Author

Victorino Matus is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. He has written for the New York Post, Salon.com, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Washingtonian magazine and provided commentary on CNN, NPR, C-SPAN, The Laura Ingraham Show, and the BBC. For a Washington Post piece on the FDA’s menu label mandate, he consumed 3,000 calories in a single sitting to prove a point, and his essays have covered the greatest culinary insult to Italian-Americans (The Olive Garden) and the foie gras wars. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Kate, and their two children.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lyons Press; First Edition (July 1, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 076278699X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0762786992
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.45 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #392,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #486 in Alcoholic Spirits
- #661 in Gastronomy History (Books)
- #837 in Homebrewing, Distilling & Wine Making

Customer Reviews:
31 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		74%
4 star		12%
3 star		7%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		7%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Eric W

A Great Tour, Led by a Funny, Engaging Tour Guide

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2016

Verified Purchase

This book was phenomenal. Victorino can write like Peggy Fleming can turn a figure 8. Here's the thing: I have literally no interest in Vodka. Zero. (Gin, on the other hand...). But I was glued to this tome like I was a dusty post-it note. The book is a highly accessible jaunt through the modern history and contemporary landscape of the U.S. vodka business. It's a story of marketing and entrepreneurship, culture and industry. The book covers all the key names, and provides a tour of big time spirits and contemporary craft distilleries. You'll end up a bit smarter after reading this one. You'll also laugh. The author has an excellent sense of humor and balances his use of that sense of humor with imparting the facts.

Interspersed throughout the book are color photos of the people and advertisements and distilleries, as the author eschews the usual non-fiction book pattern of putting all the photos in a short section in the middle. I liked this format much better. The author struck gold on this one, and I'm looking forward to future efforts.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Quincy Girl

Entertaining read!

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

Fun and entertaining read. Loved the stories and the way they were told. A great gift for anyone who likes cocktails!

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2014

Verified Purchase

Vic Matus has written a great book on an important social issue: What to drink at social occasions. I prefer gin to vodka, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the tale of how a "colorless, odorless, flavorless" brand of alcohol became so popular.

Matus tells his story with verve, wit, and a unique passion for food and drink. But you don't have to be a foodie or an alkie—sorry, mixologist—to read "Vodka." Business-minded teetotalers also have something to look forward to, since this is more than a history of drinking. It's a history of marketing. I am proud to display "Vodka" on my bar, and proud to call the author a friend. He better buy me a bottle of Smirnoff for this review.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

frank rodriguez

Vodka 101 - Interesting and easy to read introduction to Vodka

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great and quick read if you have any interest in vodka . Interesting and very informative . Highly recommend

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Kevin

Awesome book

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2021

Verified Purchase

Gift for a big vodka connoisseur, they couldn't put the book down. A lot of really great information.

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2017

Verified Purchase

Interesting book on vodka! Bought as a Xmas gift for my nephew who works at a distillery - he seems to enjoy it so far!

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

So sorry there was nothing about Russian Vodka. It is here that I find the best sipping vodkas. Consider this omission HUGE.

Helpful

Kenneth

Fun Topic, Great Writing

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2014

Verified Purchase

You will never have anywhere this much fun finding out all you need to know about a question that has no answer: why is vodka so popular? The stories are wonderful and all told at exactly the right moment. Trust me, if you tend bar. your customers will think you are fascinating. If you just hang around in bars, this will give you stories to tell that make your friends buy you another drink. LOTS of fun.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

L. Whittall

Wonderfully written and thankfully filled with supporting photos to support ...

Reviewed in Canada on November 15, 2015

Verified Purchase

An academic book cleverly disguised as a popular history. Wonderfully written and thankfully filled with supporting photos to support the largely image-based marketing of a product that is largely meant to disappear into a mix. Helped me a lot with my WSET diploma spirits unit.

Brennan Walker

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada on April 8, 2018

Verified Purchase

Great purchase!! Great book!

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