By Jason Wilson
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

I have railed against the proliferation of vodkas, especially the flavored options, which grow wackier and wackier. Not a week passes that I don't get an e-mail from some PR professional extolling the virtues of a new super-premium vodka from A Very Special Place (Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Idaho) or infused with some crazy new taste (rose petals, energy drink, acai berries) or tied to a political cause (Absolut Global Cooling, anyone?).

Because of my early stance, readers, friends and colleagues have called me out as a snob. Fair enough. I still don't see any earthly reason to pay $50 for a vodka or any justification for the existence of litchi vodka or coconut vodka. But I've made my peace. And over the past year, I've found several vodkas I enjoy very much.

I've even developed a theory on the whole flavored-vodka trend: It's a European conspiracy foisted upon unwitting American consumers to see how far they'll go. I imagine a distiller (wearing a beret, lederhosen or wooden shoes) snickering: "They drank mojito mint? Really? Well, then, let's send them over acai-blueberry and see what happens."

I concocted that theory on my recent trip to the Netherlands when I visited the historic distilling town of Schiedam, near Rotterdam. As late as 1880, Schiedam boasted about 400 distilleries, with dozens of windmills in operation to produce the malt for its famed genever, an earthy gin. But as worldwide demand for genever diminished, Schiedam ebbed into a quiet, pleasant town with canals, cobblestone streets and six windmills still in operation.

Until the remaining distillers realized they could export expensive vodka to the Americans. It wasn't a hard transition. Vodka is made from neutral spirits. And the distilleries were already making genever out of neutral spirits. So, hold the malt wine, tinker a bit, and voila! Companies selling jonge genever such as Ketel 1 for about $10 a liter could now sell vodka such as Ketel One for more than $30 a liter.

While in Schiedam, after a stop at the Jenever Museum, chronicling 300 years of distilling tradition, I visited Dirkzwager Distillery for a classic illustration of how that tradition gets defied. Dirkzwager has long been the producer of a popular genever, Floryn. In 2000 it produced its first flavored vodkas, imported to the United States under the name Van Gogh. What began as a sideline has taken over. Six years ago, Dirkzwager bottled vodka about once every other month. Now, three of every four weeks are spent bottling flavored vodka. Van Gogh exports 19 flavors, including wild apple, pineapple, double espresso and, yes, mojito mint and acai-blueberry.

I spent some time in the flavor laboratory with master distiller Tim Vos, who has been making spirits for 25 years. "There's a big difference in taste between Americans and Europeans," he says. Vos, for example, had a difficult time creating an orange-flavored vodka. He'd been using Spanish oranges as his model, and the product wasn't testing well with Americans. Then he realized that Florida oranges have a decidedly different flavor.

Oranges are one thing, but acai-blueberry? "Americans like bold taste, overwhelming taste," he says. "We don't have this taste in Europe. "

Vos says Van Gogh's next vodka will be "absinthe-flavored," and he let me taste it, along with some other flavor ideas he has been working on, including ginger, cucumber and grapefruit. There were also interesting mash-ups of fruits and plants: pear-geranium, violet-cherry, lavender-yuzu.

Back home, herb- and flower-flavored vodkas are popping up more and more, and I'm liking them -- neat. Herb's Aromatic Vodkas come in dill, cilantro, fennel and rosemary, and Sub Rosa Vodka has launched interesting saffron- and tarragon-flavored vodkas. To be honest, though, I haven't found great cocktail uses for them outside of adding spice to a bloody mary (Herb's dill and fennel are exceptional for that).

My favorite herb vodka is Sonnema VodkaHerb, imported from Schiedam. While in town, I paid a visit to Sonnema maker UTO, another genever distiller edging into the U.S. vodka market. Besides VodkaHerb, I tasted Sonnema's Berenburg, a dark, bitter herbal liqueur, akin to an Italian amaro that's extremely popular in the Netherlands. Sonnema uses a bit of the Berenburg formula of 71 herbs in the secret recipe for VodkaHerb.

I asked Edwin Holleman, UTO's commercial director, how well Sonnema sells in Holland. "There is almost no premium vodka market here," he says. "People can buy a liter of genever for eight or nine euros. No one in Holland is going to pay 29 euros for a vodka."

There's always America.

Jason Wilson can be reached at food@washpost.com.