Vodka's in danger!

[Spiffor]

An alliance of wine-producents including France and Italy wishes to force new EU definition of vodka, enabling production of "vodka" from grapes or anything else, as long as it is destilated.

The vodka coalition, including Poland, Sweden, Finland and Estonia wish to keep the name of vodka for traditional grain and potatoes product only

How can we seriously defend our international position on "traditional food products" (so that only ham from Parma can be marketed as Parma ham, for example) if we're not even able to discipline ourselves at home

[Az]

I think a whole chapter in European history should belong to the struggle of the people of northen and eastern Europe for the defeat of tyranny, freedom, and the pursuit of cheap liquor.

It's actually quite amazing how non-drinking people here are in comparison. I hear it's the same in southern europe, too. Maybe it's that, or maybe it's my chemical background, but I don't really care for this discussion. I mean, triple-distill it, and it's basically Ethanol in H20, just like Oerdin said. Then, you can add whatever you want to it for flavor.

Synthetics

[Serb]

Originally posted by Seeker
"first such refineries were build in Russia"

The Russians of that time could build things like that?

I thought they lived in felt yurts and followed the migrating deer...

Nope, it's Canadian sport.

[Az]

How can we seriously defend our international position on "traditional food products" (so that only ham from Parma can be marketed as Parma ham, for example) if we're not even able to discipline ourselves at home

The fact that they're hypocritical doesn't mean that they're not right.

All this geographical branding is pure utter, and complete bull****: If you have similar conditions and follow the same recipes, everything should be similar enough to be marketed under the same brand name. Just because your little greedy cheesemakers and whineries want to keep brands that cannot be taken away from them, doesn't mean that it's right.


Brands in general
Geographical Brands

[Pekka]

This is ridicolous. I mean let's face it, if it was a discussion about spaghetti, it would be in EU, that only Italy can call something spaghetti, because it's their domain hands down and they should be able to call it how it is and the rest of us follows that. I mean nothing wrong in it, who is in the zone most, they call it, only makes sense. Other ones are just copying, even if it's 'better'.

This is the same, we should follow what Russia says, and make that our policy of defining it, because that's where the zone is, even though they're not the only ones making it. Imagine some Finnish dude claiming that spaghetti and it's definition should be expanded to materials like making it from plastic and making it black. Italians would be going mad! Plus it wouldn't make ANY sense at all. Soon anything is spaghetti, just depends who wants to expand it a bit more. But we all know that wouldn't REALLY be the case. This same goes for vodka, it's just too trivial and no contest.

[Dinner]

Serb my misguided friend. I've already said I prefer grain based vodka but you have said that potato based vodka is not vodka. My point is to show you it is vodka, that it has at least a 400 year in Russia, and that can actually taste good. As with most spirites the quality of the fermintation, the cleanliness of the equipment, and the skill of the distiller matter almost as much as the type of mash used. They can both be good but I have noticed grain mash tends to have more fruit flavors even when secondary flavorings are not used.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Either Christian Arabs or Armenians invented the distilling process and the art of distilling spread out from the middle east. First by ship throught the med sea and the black sea then by land. It makes sense that it hit the Ukraine before it made it to Russia.

Kiev had a port in 15th century?
I'm shoked.

Yes, Dmitry Medfeleev created the 40 degree process but vodka & distilling was introduced to Russia about 1400 and by 1500 the Tsarist government had set up an Imperial monoploy on its production and commercial sale for which there were only a handful of licienced manufacturers. The Tsarist government set strict standards for quality control purposes so as to keep prices high (and thus government tax revenue high).
http://www.paulerichardson.com/vodka.cfm

Right, it were we Russians who started a mass-production of vodka first and we established modern standard for vodka as well.
Case is closed.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Serb my misguided friend. I've already said I prefer grain based vodka

Good for you

but you have said that potato based vodka is not vodka.
My point is to show you it is vodka, that it has at least a 400 year in Russia, and that can actually taste good. As with most spirites the quality of the fermintation, the cleanliness of the equipment, and the skill of the distiller matter almost as much as the type of mash used. They can both be good but I have noticed grain mash tends to have more fruit flavors even when secondary flavorings are not used.

Whatever, just don't buy any Polish pants, even if somebody convince you that it is possible to make a good Levis even from paper, if you have a skilfull tailor, clean quipment and proper dyes.

[BlackCat]

Re: Vodka's in danger!

Originally posted by Heresson

France!

I guess that they then also agree to that it will be allowed to make cognac based on potatoes ? Most of the flavor and color comes after all from the caskets, not the fact that it is based upon grapes.

Anyway, there is nothing wrong with potatobased alcohol - ask any scandinav and they can probably mention a dozen of different Akvavits.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Pekka
What Serb says is true. This is comparable to other things too, some other people might have done sauna bathing before but the tradition and history belongs in here. Same for Vodka, you say Vodka and you are supposed to say Russia, even though they make some good ones outside Russia too, but it's their domain, period.

Sauna... Well, Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub attested existance of it in Poland even before it converted to Christianity - I don't think Russia is unique in this matter. Probably something of the region or of Slavs in general - perhaps the same when it comes to vodka.

Kiev had a port in 15th century?
I'm shoked.

Isn't Kiev located by a big river, enough big for Vikings to come by it and Black Sea up to Cople?

Serb, Poland is full of Russian-made illegal cd copies and other stuff.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Azazel

How can we seriously defend our international position on "traditional food products" (so that only ham from Parma can be marketed as Parma ham, for example) if we're not even able to discipline ourselves at home

All this geographical branding is pure utter, and complete bull****: If you have similar conditions and follow the same recipes, everything should be similar enough to be marketed under the same brand name.

In an ideal world yes. But it doesn't work like that. For example, in the EU, it is perfectly legal to market some disgusting cowmilk white goo as "Feta", which allows evil Danish cheesemakers not only to tarnish the image of the wonderful sheep-milk Feta, but also to rip off the actual Fetamakers from the positive image they took millenia to develop. It also leads to the general rareification of the real thing
But the yeasayers of the cowmilk crap say that it's a "similar" product to the real thing, because some processes are idential. The notion of "similar conditions" can be interpreted quite broadly, as you can see.

Same can be said with Parma ham. Parma ham has a long tradition of quality behind it, but cannot benefit of its positive image in Canada, because some Canadian bacon-maker has trademarked the name, despite making a seriously different product. But it's made of pork, so I guess it qualifies as "similar conditions".

With the case of vodka here, we can see how broadly the notion of "similar conditions" can be interpreted. The French want to market "Vodka" that is made of different ingredients than the real thing. The fact that French "vodka" utterly sucks is detrimental to the image of genuine vodka products, because the average consumer, if he knows only French crap, may well generalize and say that he dislikes vodka in general (it was actually my situation until that unique time I tasted Russian vodka, except that my crap came from Germany).

I am not a fanatic of geographic constraints for marketing names. Ideally, a recipe-based product name would be better. But the negociations for this can be horribly petty, and lead to legitimize the crap-makers. Case in point, the EU has modified its definition of "chocolate" and allowed significantly more fat to be added in the product. This was made to please the Brits, who have a tradition of fat-full chocolate. As a result, the quality of broad-audience chocolate in the EU has dropped significantly and very quickly.

I don't see any way to avoid the pettiness in the bargainings about what constitutes "similar conditions". Except maybe to nominate a few countries that have a strong tradition in making the product, so that they have full power on the definition (but then again, they'll make sure no other country can satisfy these conditions)

[Dinner]

I will never in a million years believe that the EU's anti-competitive position on common food stuffs is anything more then a vain attempt to confuse consumers and drive up prices.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Azazel
I think a whole chapter in European history should belong to the struggle of the people of northen and eastern Europe for the defeat of tyranny, freedom, and the pursuit of cheap liquor.

It's actually quite amazing how non-drinking people here are in comparison. I hear it's the same in southern europe, too. Maybe it's that, or maybe it's my chemical background, but I don't really care for this discussion. I mean, triple-distill it, and it's basically Ethanol in H20, just like Oerdin said. Then, you can add whatever you want to it for flavor.

Actually, the French drink more alcohol per capita and annum than we do.


Serb

[Pekka]

Oerdin, yes, the BIGGEST argument for joining the EU in here was, that the food prices will go down. Can you guess what happened? The exact opposite. I would lol if it was funny.

[Heresson]

Import from Poland.