Make Your Own Cheap Top Shelf Booze
Fact or Fiction?
By Eisenhower 'Ike' Hill

There have been many Web-related rumors about turning undrinkable cheap vodka into better than top shelf booze simply by running it through over-the-counter water filters (like Brita). Sounds a lot like the old alchemists legends of turning lead into gold to me. But as a man of the drinking people, wanting to find out the pure truth for you, and more importantly, a man wanting a cheap deal on high-end cocktails, I decided to take the filter challenge.

Fact or Fiction?
All of the testing I have read appeared to be well thought out. But there are two facts obviously ignored that I will personally address.

1. The first fault with the test is that as you keep "sampling the results", i.e., drink more, anything goes down easy. What good drunk out there doesn't start with nectar of the gods only to end up drinking something fermented in a goat's bladder earlier that day?
2. Simple cost. Those damn filters are expensive. How many liters\gallons can they clean before needing replacement? This is a considerable issue, assuming the process works.

Day 1
Purchased a Brita water pitcher and several filters. $28.99 USD
Purchased ten bottles of 1.75 liter Viaka vodka. $90.00 USD (10 percent case discount, counting tax)

So here we are with ten vile bottles of booze. The first smell of this foul wanna-be Russian concoction made all test subjects want to give up drinking for a long, long time; like, two hours at least. But on they went, up for the challenge of damaging livers.

Unfortunately, the first tasting stage went far worse than the initial smelling judgment. If the initial recorded comments of the smell resembling rotten potatoes soaked in ancient boiling urine weren't enough to keep the booze connoisseurs from nipping at the vodka, the taste was surely a good sign that only the poorest quality beverage was chosen. As a small test, it was discovered that Viaka was not flammable, but the drinker of the supposed vodka was highly flammable. . . sorry about that, Fox. We'll set you up with a hair appointment at Apollo. They can do wonders with transplanting back hair.

Day 2
One random bottle of ten was selected for filtration. A sample was set aside, and the initial amount of 1.5 liters was filtered (five times through).

The initial judges were invited back, and the sampling began.

A unanimous decision rose firmly amongst the judges as the initial smell challenge passed among them. The terrible vile smell that made everyone's kidneys hurt immediately was mostly gone. Yes, the charcoal filters from Brita had indeed made a significant difference for the olfactory challenge after only five passes.

The taste challenge revealed the overall flavor had also been elevated to at least a "twelve dollar a bottle" of semi-quality vodka. Very promising. Unfortunately, our judges did notice the terrible grey color the vodka took on from the first filtering process. It's true. And as a side note, we wish to refer future booze filtering scientists to follow the directions that come with the filter closely.

Shortly after testing the five-filter batch, all contestants were made to sample the initial untouched test sample again. After the strong scent of bile went away, we all braced ourselves to finish the filtered batch with a little cranberry juice.

Day 3
They rested. While cleaner, a good bender caused unnecessary hangovers. It wasn't a girly-drink-drunk hangover, but very close. There were still quite a bit of pollutants hidden within the newly "cleaned" vodka.

Day 4
New filter added, and all pre-filtration cleaning methods were followed. After flushing the filter with ten gallons of water, everything flowed free of grey matter. As a safety measure, three ounces of pre-filtered vodka was passed through the system several times to remove the initial water from the water cleaning (this vodka was discarded - forgive us). Five new passes later, the Viaka was crystal clear and had the improved smell.

The taste and smell tests were inconclusive. Except for the "grey" coloring being eliminated, the samples were nearly identical in quality.

Editor's Note: At this point you may be wondering why this piece is so long, and whether you should keep reading. This means that you are sensible and busy, and will just buy your vodka from the story at the quality you want, thank you very much. But if you are the type to actually conduct this kind of cheap-ass experiment, keep reading. It will give you an idea how much time it will take to bother doing it at all. I'm too drunk to edit further, and take no responsibility for editing past this point.

Day 5
The original filter was added and ten passes were made with a new bottle of Viaka. Hopes were high as the guinee pig crowd gatered for another free drunken experiment. Their faces were not as sour to the idea as before, but a apprehension remained. The initial ten pass samples were delivered, and to the amazement of the record keepers, everyone seemed at ease with cramming down the swill that only days before made them all retch.

Opinion samples proved that we were not anywhere near the "Top Shelf" level promised by other experiments, but this was a great sign that the nasty can be made into at least tolerable concoctions.

Again, we made them drink the original, it was as expected, VILE. We knew it would be, but damn we have to admit after serving all this free booze, it was nice to see them fight their gag reflexes. NICE!

Day 6
Above and beyond testing begins. We started with a new cleaned filter, a new bottle of Viaka, and 20 filtrations.

This is good! It's not Stoli, but it's definitely good vodka. This was a unanimous decision among our volunteers that the filtering of cheap vodka can make a drastic difference.

Day 7
Filter endurance tests begin.
With only four bottles left (like we didn't drink some of the cheap vodka while writing down notes) we began to test the capabilities of a single filter.
First we inserted a new and cleaned filter.

Some simple math:
4 x 1.75 liters = 7 liters
To make things simple we pass a liter at a time through twenty passes.

Liters one through three passed with flying colors. Around liter four or five, only the smell remained improved, and the taste of these liters was becoming quite foul. By liter six, the filtration process had been slowed down dramatically. After finishing twenty pases with liter number seven, it was obvious that the filter was becoming clogged and useless for cleaning out the undesirable components.

Conclusion
A Brita water pitcher filter will indeed clean nasty vodka. But you will never turn a nine dollar bottle of filth into a forty dollar bottle of Grey Goose.

At best, the first three liters at twenty filtrations a pop will turn a bottle of scum into a Sky level of vodka.

Again the simple math:
2 x 1.75 liter bottles is $18.00 USD + 1 Brita filter $5.00 USD = $23.00 USD
1 one liter bottle of Grey Goose Vodka = $22.00 USD
1 one liter bottle of Sky Vodka = $18.00 USD

So if you are into drinking decent vodka, love home experiments, and have way too much free time, we recommend that you go out into the real world and apply yourself to getting a job that pays you enough to not have to attempt this kind of useless scientific experiments at home.

- www.KCDrinker.com - 2004 ©

Eisenhower ‘Ike’ Hill is a high altitude native of Colorado Springs, CO. After extensive blackouts, he now runs guns to fuel the Missouri Border Wars near Kansas City, MO.  He is fully credited for the theory of, "Complete a sentence, and take a shot of whiskey." In his spare time, which is a lot, he enjoys dressing as an (Irish) Catholic priest and hearing the confessions of hot chicks.