Alright folks, buckle up because this journey to the IWSC Vodka of the Year thing was a wild ride, lemme tell ya how it actually went down. Started simple enough.
The Hopeful Beginning
Got this idea maybe two, three years back? Everyone kept raving about craft spirits, small batch, all that jazz. Thought, "Hell, how hard can making a decent vodka be?" Famous last words, right? Figured I knew a bit about distillation from messing around before.
First step: got obsessed with potatoes. Seriously. Spent months just finding the right damn potatoes. Not just any spud! Tried like, I dunno, ten different varieties? Russian Fingerlings, Yukon Golds, some weird purple ones from a local farm. Grew some myself even – that was a disaster, bugs ate half the crop. Ended up settling on these Maris Piper ones. Good starch, local-ish.
The Messy Middle
Built a little still in the garage. Looked like a mad scientist’s coffee pot rigged to pipes. Scared the neighbor once when steam started billowing out the window like a sauna. Had a real rough start. First few batches? Undrinkable. Seriously. Burnt taste, weird aftertaste like dirt, one batch smelled faintly of diesel fuel – still dunno how that happened. Tried filtering a million times too. Activated charcoal (made a mess), quartz sand (waste of time), even bought this expensive diamond stuff online. Big mistake.
- Distilling Failures: Way too many runs. Burnt the mash at least five times. Wasted SO much potato. Felt dumb.
- Bottling Snafu: Ordered custom glass bottles. First hundred arrived shattered. Looked like a murder scene in cardboard.
- Paperwork Nightmare: Forgot all the legal stuff! Licenses, permits, health inspections? Months of red tape hell. Almost quit right there.
Honestly thought about chucking the whole project. Remember sitting on a crate in the garage, covered in potato starch, staring at the stupid still. Figured, "Screw it, try one more time." Tweaked the fermentation time, triple-checked the water filtration, started collecting only the absolute purest "heart" of the distillate, threw away a ton of the rest. Slowly, slowly... it started tasting cleaner. Crisp. Almost smooth.
The Unexpected Twist (Because Life)
Just as things were looking up? Personal life went kaboom. Wife decided the whole vodka obsession meant I loved potatoes more than her. Packed her bags. Talk about a gut punch. So yeah, wasn't just technical problems dragging me down suddenly. Made bottling that decent batch feel kinda hollow.
The Accidental Win
Entered it into the IWSC kinda as a "What the hell, why not?" afterthought. Sent off the bottles feeling like throwing a message in a bottle out to sea. Months later, got this official-looking email. Thought it was spam! Opened it... couldn't believe it. Vodka of the Year? Me? The guy whose first batches tasted like diesel and sadness? The guy mid-divorce? Fuck me.
Showed up at the awards ceremony feeling like a total imposter in my slightly-too-tight suit. Surrounded by fancy suits and slick marketing talk. Got the little medal thing. Shook some hands. Came home, sat on the same garage crate. Whole thing felt unreal.
The Point... Maybe?
So what's the takeaway from this potato-fueled saga? It ain't really about winning some shiny award. It was pure stubbornness. Stupid amounts of failed attempts. Sweat. Tears (personal ones!). Almost gave up a dozen times. Learned a ton about how stuff actually gets made – the ugly, messy reality behind the fancy bottle on the shelf. And also learned that sometimes, right when everything feels broken, the universe tosses you a weird bone. Or a medal.
Would I do it again? Hell no. But seeing that dumb bottle with the medal sticker? Yeah. Feels alright.
