SKOTKA Scottish Vodka

SKOTKA Scottish Vodka claims to be the first ultra-premium Scottish vodka.

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History of SKOTKA Scottish Vodka

This Scottish vodka does have an interesting history. It’s from a new Glasgow-based company called Kilted Drinks, and we can expect more things from them in the future.

CEO Gordon Mitchell took the unusual step of first making SKOTKA available through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, which has now finished. The campaign wasn’t to raise funds but to allow people to buy the finished product, with discounts and other bonuses available to subscribers.

Fun Fact
SKOTKA was originally going to be called Scotchka, till the Scotch Whisky Association complained.

How SKOTKA Scottish Vodka is Made

The base for SKOTKA is sugar beets, which is not the most common base but isn’t that unusual. One of the most common of the cheap vodkas found in the UK, Glen’s, is made from sugar beet. It’s my go-to cheap vodka, if you’re not looking for a quality sipping vodka but just want something easy to mix with coke or orange juice.

SKOTKA is then distilled seven times. At each distillation, if you’re doing it properly, the heads and tails will be removed (the stuff that tastes rough and gives you worse hangovers), and you will be left with a purer spirit. This is what SKOTKA says about their vodka:

Chemical analyses show only trace amounts (<5 mg/L) of unwanted chemicals, such as methanol, in the liquid. The admissible concentration of methanol in pure vodka is 100 mg/L.

Methanol is the stuff you really don’t want to be drinking, so the less, the better.

SKOTKA says that its vodka is then diamond-filtered ‘using a bespoke filtration process.’ I’m not quite sure what this means. Filtration is usually over charcoal, and you don’t really need to use diamonds – if indeed diamonds are good for filtering a spirit. This is where my ‘marketing hype’ klaxon starts making a noise. Mentioning the number of distillations? Then using diamonds?

Where SKOTKA Scottish Vodka is Made

The klaxon keeps going if you want to get more detailed information about the vodka. Where is it made? ‘Scotland’, the website says. OK, but could you be a bit more specific? And what water is used to bring this spirit down to its 40% ABV strength. ‘Scottish water’. OK, but is that from a local spring, an aquifer, or out of the tap?

SKOTKA Scottish Vodka Review

The bottom line, though, no matter what anyone says about their vodka, is how does it taste? Actually, before we get to the bottom line, there’s the bottle line. The vodka does come in one kick-ass bottle. It is tall and slender, tapers a little like the Eiffel Tower, and is white. The label, in blue and white, Scotland’s colours, shows the mountain of Schiehallion, pretty much in the centre of the country in a part of Scotland I’ve been to several times and which is stunningly beautiful. Being a curious creature, I’d like to know why they chose Schiehallion, and what relevance it has to the vodka, but they don’t say.

They do say that the bottle uses bio-degradable paint, so it’s totally recyclable, although for me this is one of those bottles that’s definitely a keeper. It’s a real work of art.

But back to the bottom line. To taste the vodka I pulled a shot glass off the shelf, and was amused to see that by chance I’d picked one sent to me by Shotka Vodka. So I was about to taste SKOTKA Vodka in a Shotka Vodka shot glass. Try saying that after a few shots of either of them.

On the nose the SKOTKA is very neutral, which is a change as I’ve recently been sipping and sniffing a lot of whisky, mezcal and pisco, which are all so full of aromas that you’re in scent-heaven. After a while floral aromas do come through, along with the smell of hay/summer fields. The neutrality is good, no hint of that methanol which gives cheaper vodkas a kind of alcohol/medicinal smell.

On the palate the vodka isn’t quite as smooth as on the nose. It has a certain rough edge to it, though it also has a vanilla creaminess, some citrus, and a nicely-rounded mouth-feel. I can’t help but compare it to the best vodka I’ve tasted recently, which still lingers in the mind (and on the palate): Black Cow Vodka. That had none of this slight harshness that SKOTKA has on the palate.

The Verdict

SKOTKA Scottish Vodka isn’t a bad vodka. It’s a very good vodka, in fact. I just think there is quite a bit of hype in the selling of it, and I’m not sure it lives up to the price tag, but if you bought a bottle you’d certainly enjoy it and you’d have an amazing bottle for the shelves. There’s also a version you can order in a gift box, and though I haven’t seen it I know from the quality of the bottle that the gift box is going to be top class.