Review: Tito’s Handmade Vodka (2007)
Review: Tito’s Handmade Vodka (2007)
If you read the Wall Street Journal, you’ve seen the ads for Tito’s Handmade Vodka. With a kind of scrappy, homemade look and feel (to both the ads and the bottle itself), Tito’s doesn’t look like much… but as with a book, don’t judge this liquor by its cover.
I taste a lot of vodka here — more than any other spirit, really — and I can pronounce that Tito’s is, if not the best I’ve had, one of the top two or three. Yes, it’s a clean vodka without a lot of aftertaste, making it easy to sip or mix into a cocktail, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a faint medicinal flavor to the vodka but it imparts a crispness, not something off-putting. The best way I can put is it is that it tastes like clean sheets when you’re exhausted and ready for bed.
Poking around I discovered that Tito’s is distilled from corn, though it can compete with the best vodkas I’ve had, all of which are distilled from grapes. It probably has to do with Tito’s incredibly meticulous distillation process: He even built his own stills.
Then there’s the price: Locally I can find Tito’s for all of 16 bucks. You should be able to get it for less than $20 anywhere. That puts it on par with or cheaper than the bulk-produced Absolut and even flirting with Smirnoff. The price bumps it from an A to a full A+ for me. If you’re a vodka drinker you owe it to yourself to try Tito’s.
80 proof.
A+ / $16 / titosvodka.com
Tito's Handmade Vodka (2007)
$16
I have never been a vodka drinker. There just never seemed to be any point, if you catch my drift.
But two things have changed this. First, growing herbs. I use them to infuse Smirnoff (which I run through a Brita filter before using it) and I’ve produced some great flavors, plus a thing I’ve come to think of as “crude gin” – filtered Smirnoff infused with a selection of organically grown herbs, spices, and citrus. It’s awesome.
The other thing that’s changed my thinking about vodka is Tito’s. I keep a bottle on the sideboard (it’s great at room temp) and one in the freezer (it’s great cold).
I still haven’t yielded to the idea of a “vodka martini” … or have I? The only use I’ve found for Martini’s recent “Rosato” vermouth is in a four-to-one mix on ice with – yup: Tito’s.
Nice review. I had a rep at a store in Tampa tell me to save my money and put my bottle of Goose back on the self and save some money. So I rolled the dice as we had a group of guys drinking that night. Everyone of us was pleasantly surprised by Tito’s. I can say I never looked back as I always have Tito’s ready to go.
I bought Titos Vodka awhile back I seen it a magazine so looked for it and bought it ;it is like people said very good.