This Week in Vodka: Drunken Olives and Mollusk Distilling Are the Latest Crazes

Photo: The Industrious Spirit Company

Vodka on its own isn’t generally very flavorful and that’s kind of the point. This colorless, odorless, neutral spirit is made from potatoes, rye, corn, or other grains and is supposed to provide a flavorless base for a martini or bloody Mary. But while there are myriad clear, seemingly flavorless vodkas on the market there are also countless flavored vodkas. Flavors like grape, lime, even spicy pepper vodka are nothing new, but what about oyster-flavored vodka?

Thanks to the folks at Rhode Island’s Industrious Spirit Company, we can now add these mollusks to the list of flavored vodkas. It’s called Ostreida Oyster Vodka. It starts as an organic corn-based neutral spirit that is distilled with oysters. As the oysters steam, they release their liquid (as gross as that sounds) into the still. This makes the vodka taste briny, salty, and pretty much like the ocean itself.

You might be wondering how an oyster-flavored vodka came to be. The road began at the distillery’s first birthday party. Distillery personnel were eating oysters and drinking vodka and began to wonder if it would be possible to make a vodka that tasted like the ocean-dwelling bivalves.

If it wasn’t enough that a vodka made from oysters was launched this week, a Greek company dropped an olive-flavored vodka called Kastra Elion. Made with hand-picked olives from the Nafpaktos region, it’s a mixture of sweet, savory, and salty.

While we’re not sure how either of these vodkas tastes (we’ll take their word for it), we can assume that the briny flavor in both likely works well as a base for a martini or bloody Mary. We’re not sure we’d like to do a shot of either on its own, but maybe they aren’t as bad as they sound.

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