A Great Bottle Design by Karim Rashid and Fabulous Brand Imagery For One Weird Vodka: AnestasiA Sensational Spirit.

AnestasiA Vodka is touted as the world's first 'tingling' spirit. An ultra-premium five times distilled vodka made from Cascade spring water and organic corn from Oregon. It claims to have a frost-like cooling sensation and it is housed in an award-winning bottle design by Karim Rashid.




Let me begin this post by telling you it was my intention to commend the brand on their bold image conveyed through the unique and bizarre photography on their site. However, as I am writing this post, the AnestasiA Vodka brand has since replaced several of the more interesting photographs I've shown here throughout this post with more mundane and unoriginal ones. More on that later.



Back to the vodka.
First off, I shall explain what they mean by tingling. In this particular case, AnestasiA (I'm guessing this is a deliberate play on anesthesia or anesthetic) means a menthol-like numbing sensation. Something that several reviews have found very distateful. Drink Spirits calls it "the Worst Tasting Vodka They've Ever Had" and Drink Hacker claims that "For someone expecting a more traditional vodka, the attack to the palate is jarring."



Not at all universally disliked, the vodka has received some awards for its unique taste: The Beverage Testing Institute 2013 Platinum Medal and Double Gold Medal and the MicroLiquor Triple Gold Winner for Taste, Packaging and Design. And the Food & Drink Magazine blog says it goes down more smoothly than other vodkas when drunk straight.



“AnestasiA Vodka is made from a formula developed by food scientists that reduces the burn inherent in alcohol, especially vodka, making it more pleasant to consume,” Yuliya Mamontova, co-founder of Numbrands, Inc., says. This gives it a distinct tingling or cooling sensation some drinkers have likened to mint, though it does not contain menthol.



As a traditional Vodka lover, the taste does not appeal to me, but I loved the image the brand initially conveyed through their website and social media with bizarre but beautiful photography by Philipp Matt.

I use the past tense because I visited their site again today and was dismayed to see more 'ordinary-looking' photography. Someone in the marketing department must have gotten nervous and most all the wonderful images I've shown here are no longer on their site but instead have been replaced with the more expected images of a blond woman posing in a chair and on a stairwell (see below):


above: these images have replaced the masked bartender, poodle and unicorn images shown in this post on the AnestasiA website

Youthful, hip and funky, the brand's inital image is (was?)  a perfect fit for the award-wining bottle design by Karim Rashid.

The Bottle:

The drawings:

The inital prototype:

The final product:



The Case Design:


On their site they claim "AnestasiA is the culmination of a quest to create the world’s most effortless vodka. After years of research, it turned out that the best vodka can be hand crafted right here in Bend, Oregon, USA —born from Cascade Mountain spring water and locally grown organic corn."



"These select ingredients and hand-craftsmanship make AnestasiA VodkaTM a world-class spirit. It is five times filtered through charcoal and crushed volcanic rock as well as five times distilled."



The vodka is also naturally gluten-free (as if that matters).

Description from their site:
At the laboratory one day, a brilliant scientist eyed the tingling agent he was about to use in an experiment. That night, over drinks with his Russian mistress, they imagined combining the tingling sensation with the exuberance of vodka. In that moment, AnestasiA was born—the combination of a once-dream. Bottled in Oregon from organic corn vodka and distilled 5 times, this concoction only needed one finishing touch: world famous designer Karim Rashid. With everything in place, AnestasiA became the astoundingly unique and unrivaled product before you.


all images courtesy of AnestasiA Sensational Spirit

AnestasiA
You can purchase it here and try it for yourself.

Let My People Drink. Moses Kosher Vodka.

Since most Jews are in the midst of celebrating Passover this week, I thought it might be a good time to introduce you to Moses Vodkas. Pure in spirit and true to the laws of the Jewish faith, Moses Vodka is the first ultra premium vodka certified kosher all year round.



Moses Vodka is an award-winning "super premium" vodka that includes the extra feature of being certified Kashrut or kosher. Fortunately enough, a miracle wasn't needed to create Moses Vodka. Just the Prophet's name, pure spring water, the choice of the finest raw ingredients, a unique filtration process, and the blessing of a Rabbi to deliver you a kosher product of true perfection.


above: Moses Vodka is available as both a super premium pure Vodka and a Date flavored Vodka.

From Finland (yes, there are Jews in Finland), it is certified under the supervision of Rabbi Dr. Moshe Edelmann. The vodka itself is made from a base of sugarcane (a vodka rather than a rum because it will have been distilled up to at least 190 proof prior to bottling) and blended down with natural spring water.



Rabbi Yaakov Westheim supervises the distillation process, making sure sugarcane is transformed into pure spirit using methods and machinery compliant to kashrut laws.





Rabbis Benjamin Gruber and Moshe Edelman are responsible for the production process and the quality of ingredients.



This includes a careful selection of raw ingredients, cleaning the bottling line and mixing tanks with boiling water, the usage of single-use materials in the production process wherever possible, strict hygiene rules to follow by the personnel throughout manufacturing and packaging.




As an additional note, as is common with some European vodkas there is a sugar additive to the spirit--sometimes called "rounding the spirit"--which will upset some vodka purists. For others, this is adds a welcome and flavorful smoothness to the vodka.

The Moses Vodka Gift Box:



• 1 bottle of Moses Vodka (750ml)
• 1 bottle of Moses Date Vodka (750ml)
• 4 shot glasses

The Vodka has won several awards for both taste and packaging.


Awards:
Silver - NYISC
Silver - Vodka Masters (design and packaging)
Silver - SFWSC
Silver - ISC
Gold - SIP Awards
MASTER - Vodka Masters

Some of their ads:


Moses Vodka can be purchased online at:
The Kosher Wine Company
Proof 66

To find other stores in various countries that carry Moses Vodkas, check here.

Moses Vodka

Precious Vodka Has A Real Gem In Every Diamond Shaped Bottle.

above: the bottle of Precious Vodka shown has a genuine ruby gemstone you can see at the very top of the bottle

Jewel Lines® has produced a unique combination of Ultra-Premium Vodka with the most valuable natural precious stones in the world. The award-winning vodka (recipient of the Silver Medal San Francisco Awards in 2011) is bottled in a luxury diamond shaped container complete with a single real gemstone.




Precious Vodka is produced from distiller grown and harvested winter wheat and nourished with post glacial subterranean spring water. The wheat used in Precious Vodka is carefully selected with only the top 10% of the annual harvest making it to the distillation process. From there their master distiller distills 6 times then dilutes with locally sourced natural spring water. The water is high in mineral content and adds a very strong, yet natural citric aromatic nose and flavour that is Precious Vodka.



Precious Vodka is bottled in a unique diamond shaped bottle. Every bottle of Precious Vodka contains a beautiful natural gemstone from their collection of fully certifiable precious stones which include sapphire, emerald, ruby, topaz, and peridot. Their gemstones are specially crafted so that their customers receive only the finest genuine jewel stones. The gemstones add a unique quality to the overall experience that is only available when you purchase a bottle of Precious Vodka.

The bottle below contains a sapphire you can see just below the tip. The bottle also has a sticker that identifies the jewel within:





Precious Vodka is unique. Extreme detail was used when creating the diamond shaped bottle and its beauty alone makes it stand out and turn heads. Great pride and care is taken to achieve the highest level of luxury in every bottle of Precious Vodka, produced in distilleries utilizing the most innovative German technology.

Jewel Lines

Precious Vodka is available globally and shipped from Europe. For information or orders please contact email: info@jewellines.com
EU: +359 601 69 663

A Brooklyn Vodka Made From Sugar Beets. A Look At How Industry City Distillery Does It.

Industry City Distillery is the newest venture of The City Foundry, a research and design group focused on improving small-scale manufacturing processes through the blending of science and art.



Building and operating a distillery requires a diversity of talent. They’ve assembled a team from all over the country: a printmaking biological engineer and science nerd; a machinist with a bent for sculpture; a code-wrangling graphic designer and fabricator; a yoga instructor turned business manager; a hard-drinking commercial salmon fisherman and a whole lot of yeast.


above: the talent behind the Industry City Distillery

The kind of massive, specialized infrastructure required to meet the exacting technical standards of their distilled products doesn’t come cheap, so they built it.



The City Foundry’s 6000 sq. foot space holds not only the distillery but everything needed to improve their process and grow their business, including a machine shop, a biological research lab, a design studio and onsite printing press, a business office, and a public space for tasting and events.







The folding of research, development and production together under one roof allows them the distinction of being the only distillery in the last century with all process equipment, including the stills, built in Brooklyn.

Here'a a film by Christopher Parker for the brand:

Music:
"Flutter" written & performed by Bonobo, Published by Just Isn't Music Limited/NinjaTune
"Composure" written & performed by B.Fleischmann, released by Morr Music

Fermentation:
They take fermentation very seriously. The flavors they’re after in their vodka are created primarily by the interaction of yeast and their environment, and so they endeavor to control the process of fermentation carefully and accurately.

To do this, they’ve developed a fermentation system like no other distillery. Instead of using massive stainless steel tanks and fermenting in batches, they use banks of custom-built glass bioreactors in a continuous fermentation line.



They use a strain of yeast originally discovered in European sugar beet fields, which they immobilize in alginate beads. Sugar, nutrients, and alcohol are able to pass through the alginate, but the yeast themselves stay in place.

The bioreactor design emerged from a need to minimize, at every stage, the introduction or development of unwanted flavor components in their base product (or “wash”). This process ensures that no outside contaminants can grow in the wash, that little of the yeast can escape the fermentation system, and that they have the control wanted over the conditions of fermentation.

Clean, clear, sugar solution goes in, and clean, clear alcohol solution comes out. No settling tanks, no filtration, no need. Happy yeast and great ingredients make a delicious product; before the freshly fermented product ever makes it to the still, it's good enough to drink.


Distillation:


The first step in their process is a steam powered continuous stripping still. By introducing a small, constant drip of wash into a steam column, they are able to concentrate or "strip" the wash without scorching or over-boiling - an area where traditional distillation methods tend to impart unpleasant flavors.




The use of a stripping still also provides huge energy savings - it draws about as much as a drip coffee maker and reduces both the length and energy consumption of their final distillation run. From the stripping still the product is collected and prepared for the next stage of distillation.




Although copper stills are beautiful,they don't deliver on a number of points that ICD believes to be critical to the production of a great vodka. They run small batches of the steam distilled product through a high separation fractional distillation column developed specifically for this product. This system allows them to separate all the chemical components of their product and selectively remove or include them one by one. Fractional distillation is a process usually reserved for industrial and laboratory products - industries that rely on the precision and repeatability of their systems and the purity of their chemicals. Fractional distillation allows Industry City an unprecedented level of control over the final composition of our vodka.

Design
Liquor companies tend to spend a disproportionate amount of money on their bottles - vodka in particular is often a product differentiated more by what it's in than what it is.

For Industry City, the bottle is arguably the least important part of their product. It needs to contain and protect the alcohol, tell you what's inside, and perform both functions as efficiently as possible. It still needs to hold its own on a shelf of million dollar marketing budgets, but that's the kind of challenge that gets them up in the morning.

Batch No.1 was blended from the very first runs on their prototype equipment. While the results were tasty, they also led to a round of substantial improvements across many aspects of the process, and this limited test batch was never released to the general public.


above image courtesy of nommable.net

Batch No. 2 was the first vodka sold in stores and since the release of No. 2, they have incorporated a number of innovations into their production process.


above image courtesy of werd

Now, they’re inviting their customers to try No. 3 (you can buy it here), the result of this round of improvements – and to play an active role in helping us develop our next batch. Their intention is to continue to release new iterations of our vodkas as we further refine our prototype product and process.


above image courtesy of The Financialist

Once they’ve built their final, permanent production line, they’ll create a flagship vodka based on the research and the feedback they've received.

In the meantime, you’re welcome to visit them in Sunset Park and see the latest developments. They give tours and tastings every Sunday afternoon; please email tours@drinkicd.com for more details.


all images (unless otherwise noted) are courtesy of ICD

Industry City Distillery