Vodka taste test tiff

'Tis the season for the office drinks party, so perhaps an appropriate time for a row to have broken out over the science behind the taste of vodka.

Last May, Chemistry World reported on a paper published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in which a group led by Dale Schaefer of the University of Cincinnati in the US demonstrated that a particular hydrate of ethanol occurred in different concentrations in different vodka brands.¹ This hydrate consists of around five molecules of water associated with one of ethanol. The relative amount of hydrate could give different vodka brands a different 'structurability', the authors suggested, and this in turn could account for people's preference for one brand over another.  More...

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/December/15121001.asp