24 Feb Sweet Potato Vodka a big winner for taste-test panel
Three people were asked to sample three brands of vodka. They only guessed one correctly … before they’d even tasted it. Get the lowdown on which was superior.
The “smoothest” vodka ever proved to be instantly recognisable after it was put to a blind taste-test.
Far Northern couple and owners of Plantation Brew Co, Krista and Rob Watkins, launched their Sweet Potato Vodka last month and claimed it was “very fragrant”, best served neat and it didn’t take your breath away.
So the Cairns Post’s Amelia Faulkner and Shane Moon, and The Chambers’ bartender David Saloukvadze compared the sweet potato vodka, with two staple brands — Grey Goose and Ketel One.
They were given three drinks each, one of each brand at a time, and without being told which was which, in the order of Ketel One, Sweet Potato and then Grey Goose.
They were asked to consider the smell, taste and burn of each drink, then attempt to guess what they had just sampled.
All three panellists incorrectly guessed samples one and three – Ketel One and Grey Goose – but didn’t even need to taste the Sweet Potato Vodka to correctly identify the Plantation Brew Co product.
The fragrance was the dead giveaway.
“Way more aroma and it smells enticing and delicious,” Amelia says before her sample. “It was very silky, it goes down so easy and it’s so smooth,” she says.
Shane agreed.
“It’s very florally, it’s smooth and it’s got that kick at the end of it,” he says.
David says the Sweet Potato Vodka “packs a lot of flavours”.
“It’s got that savouriness that you find in sweet potatoes and it’s something you could have with your mum’s pumpkin soup.”
David says Plantation Brew Co’s vodka has the potential to be “a lot of fun”.
“Vodka is very hard because it’s just about trying to find it as smooth as possible, or what goes as easy as possible. For Plantation (Brew) Co to do something like this and do it from sweet potatoes is incredible.
“I could have that neat, I could have that on the rocks or with soda water.
“A lot of people are going to have a lot of fun mixing that in with other things.”
He says he has been experimenting with the vodka to create new cocktails.
“The cocktail possibilities are endless with it,” he says.
“It works well with grapefruit, limes, lemons and then you can mix it with thyme or a lot of other herbs.”
A 700ml bottle of the Sweet Potato Vodka can be purchased from the Plantation Brew Co website for $80.
No Comments