Vodka Cocktails

Vodka may not seem the most obviously useful ingredient in the cocktail cupboard, in the sense that it is typically just a neutral, coulourless spirit that at most can only add a further shot of alcohol to a mixed drink. However, many of the modern cocktails are based on the principle of blending a range of different, often exotic fruit flavours over an alcohol base that doesn’t interfere with the taste of them. If there are surprisingly few vodka cocktails from the classic era, that is because vodka wasn’t then generally commercially available.

Vodka is now one of the world's most popular spirits. It was rarely consumed outside Europe before the 1950s. By 1975, vodka sales in the United States overtook those of bourbon, previously the most popular hard liquor and the native spirit of that country. In the second half of the 20th century, vodka owed its popularity in part to its reputation as an alcoholic beverage that "leaves you breathless", as one ad put it — no smell of liquor remains detectable on the breath, and its neutral flavor allows it to be mixed into a wide variety of drinks, often replacing other liquors (particularly Gin) in traditional drinks, such as the Martini.

View more Vodka Cocktails