I confess to not being a vodka snob. I am a bourbon snob, a fly rod snob, and a fly-tied-by-me snob, among a lot of other categories of snobbery and elitism, but not (until now) vodka. In fact, until recently I considered vodka a kind of classy Everclear, a flavorless additive to tonic, grape juice, watermelons, and hesitant dates. Though I could enlarge on the subtleties and characteristics of various bourbons, I doubted that the vodkas that occupied the next shelf varied from one another in any substantive way other than price and how far they would go to evoke snowy Slavic landscapes with expensive packaging.
But then I happened on Dry Fly Distillery in a fortuitous moment of Googlement, and they sent me a sample, and I drank some, and I knew I'd been a horse's ass. First of all, of course, it was cool to have--not just a bottle that nobody else on the block had, but a bottle that had its own dual value, like the can of Billy Beer and the Cal Ripken commemorative Coke bottles. The Billy is just beer, and the Cal is just coke, but it's, like, better beer and cooler coke. Second, and third and fourth, this vodka was good. I mean, really good. Like, underline for emphasis good. The only greater accolade is underlined bold italics with quotes for emphasis good. I'll have to taste more vodkas before I go there.
Like I said, I'm a vodka virgin, so I won't even try to characterize the flavors, at the risk of adding more counts of horse's assery to the current list of charges. (Others are not so shy: here are reviews: 1, 2, and 3, all positive; I found no negative reviews.)
Let me repeat: good. I drank it slowly, on ice. No tonic, no date, just me and my new favorite, official StoryArc libation. Way, way good.
As penance, I inflicted a long-threatened taste-test on my wife, who is a vodka fan. I knew what was going to happen, because my wife and her vodka friends are serious and smart, and like I said I had not behaved well vodka-wise, but I poured out samples of what we had--Dry Fly, Belvedere, Cirac, Smirnoff, and a little Bacardi just to keep it interesting. They nailed them, all of them, 100%, confirming my horsesassitude. I may have been humiliated, but I admitted it. Another knock of Dry Fly cheered me right up, and I will never misunderestimate the power of good spirits again.
It's a craft distillery (they have gin, and the scotch and bourbon are cooking--I can't wait!) so acquisition isn't easy. Work through the website. Get some.
Dave