There is a new flavored vodka on the market (groan from the audience). I know what you are thinking. Do we need another flavored vodka? We don’t. However, Oddka Vodka is doing something different is exploring some creative and dynamic flavors. Full disclosure, the marketing team reach out to me for help in some content production for the launch. They sent me the tasting pack (shown below) but I did decline the financial contribution. The team was extremely helpful in answering questions and setting-up a Q&A with a mixologist.

I recruited a few of The Oakland bartenders to help with the sampling. Below are the notes we had about each flavor.  They also sell an unflavored vodka but it didn’t see it for sale in my area.

Electricity: Everyone was curious about this one. It smells like blue, if blue had a smell. We didn’t really get a berry smell just blue. The taste is acidic and a bit harsh. It’s very assertive. After the fact, we figured out that this was supposed to taste like licking a 9 volt battery. I picked up some batteries but haven’t had a chance to compare. Stay tuned. This could be used as a shock ingredient (no pun intended) but I wouldn’t use it as something for it’s flavor.

Apple Pie: The smell of this is quite yummy. It has a dessert feel. The taste however is disappointing. The sweet comes through and a bit of the caramel but the salt isn’t there. You could probably doctor that up yourself but missing one of the three flavors seems disappointing.

Wasabi: This was our favorite. The smell is pretty mild and you don’t catch the spice off the bat. The taste does offer some spice but could be 10 times more. Our feeling was this would get lost in a cocktail especially a Bloody Mary as recommended.

Salted Caramel Popcorn: This one has a good nose. It was sweet and had a bit of toasted flavors and the taste was about the same. What it didn’t have was the salt flavor. We guess you could add that yourself.

Fresh Cut Grass: This was the worst one. It had a nose of cut grass but it smelled like it was sitting in the clippings bag for a bit and was starting to decay. The taste was very similar. The group was not impressed with this and moved on pretty quickly.

The Oddka Team asked if I wanted to do a video for the product. I did some research and found this one. Since this group pretty much nailed it, I opted for something else.

Wit Oddoski is their mascot. If you watch the above video, you get a feel for what he is. I thought it would be neat to make him into a puppet. Here is the file, if you want to make your own. It was fun to build. I just added some piano wire to operate him with.

We tired to get an interview set-up with one of their mixologists but the timing didn’t work out.  He did answer a few questions through email. Unfortunately, the responses weren’t exactly what I was looking for. We might try to connect again and if so, I’ll follow-up with the result.

I want to thank The Oakland Bartenders (Kaytee, Chas & Shane) for help with tasting. Chas can be seen here expertly operating Wit.

Budmo!