Well OT: Strength of vodka

[John]

Google is not being my friend on this so I come to the gurus of the group.

Having an extremely sweet tooth, I want to make some 'pear drops' vodka, which I believe I can do quite simply by shoving some pear drops into a bottle of vodka and they will dissolve, thereby imparting their flavour to the spirit.

Trouble is, the 'usual' vodkas, such as Smirnoff, Stolly, Russian Standard, Absolut et al, are all around the 35 to 40% proof mark which is far too strong for me - I want something around 15 to 22% proof and I'm really struggling to find it.

I know that flavoured vodkas come in that strength, but a plain vodka always seems to be stronger. I've already tried Bullet Pear Drops vodka and it's crap - tastes nothing like pear drops to me.

Anyone know of a readily-available (supermarket?) plain vodka in lower strength, or how to 'weaken' stronger vodka without just adding water?

[The Natural Philosopher]

since weakening vodka *is* about adding water, the answer has to be 'no'

>

[Adam Funk]

I think your best bet is to weaken it by diluting it with water. AIUI, most spirits are diluted after distillation anyway (IIRC, whiskeys are usually distilled to something like 70 or 80% alcohol, aged in casks, then watered down to 40% just before bottling).

I suggest doing lots of experiments on yourself with various ratios of pear drops, vodka, & water. :-)

[djornsk]

Vodka is mostly water , and anything you are likely to be able to add to weaken it will have a an even greater proportion of water.

What about trying to get the strength right by adding pure water and then tweaking the flavour with natural essences, herbs, spices, sweeteners, cordial, or even blades of grass from an english meadow along the lines of that polish vodka which I can never remember or pronounce.

j

[Man at B&Q]

Oh FFS! How else do you expect to weaken it, more alcohol?

You can add some flavouring as well, but you are doing that anyway.

MBQ

[John]

I honestly didn't know that :/

[John]

Well I didn't think it was just water. I once had a whiskey but they didn't have my required mixer so, as I'd seen someone ask for a whiskey and water, I decided to try that. To my taste buds, all it did was that I could taste the whiskey but also taste the water as well, which is why I never have ice cubes in any drink.

[John]

Well, since you insist... :')

[charles]

that depends on the water. Whisky should have soft (rain) water without any chlorine.

[SteveW]

In my opinion, cheap whisky should have Coke added, turning it into a long drink, while decent whisky should have nothing at all added, not even water or ice!

SteveW

[charles]

certainly "cooking whisky" needs something added. On the other hand cask strength malt is a bit too strong to drink neat, so good highland water should be used - in moderation, Ice? ugh!

[newshound]

Or Malvern water.

As you say, ice is strictly for Americans.

[The Natural Philosopher]

To be fair you could just leave the cap off an let the alcohol evaporate I suppose.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well it depends what is in the water besides water..

[Alan Braggins]

I suspect you don't mean "proof". Vodka is about 40% alcohol by volume, not 40% proof.

probably won't find plain vodka sold as such at 20% "The European Union has established a minimum of 37.5% ABV for any "European vodka" to be named as such."

[John Williamson]

When they're diluting Bourbon, which is as close as they get to whisky, the Yanks have what they call "Bourbon and branch", with the water coming from the same stream as the water used to brew the Bourbon.

But diluting *any* decent whisky is heresy.

[Alan Braggins]

Nonsense. Most whisky is diluted when bottled, very little is sold at cask strength.

[The Natural Philosopher]

+1

[Chris Holford]

In article , John writes

snip

Iceland stores used to sell weak versions of various spirits.

[Nick Odell]

I reckon that pear drops would taste horrible unless you pack enough into the vodka to keep the flavour strong and sharp. And if you dissolve that much sugar and flavour into the vodka you'll be bulking out the volume so that the proportion of alcohol goes down anyway. Why not try it out without any further dilution and see what it is like before you think of diluting it further?

Nick