Hangar One Straight

Jorg Rupf and Lance Winters figured out how to make straight vodka taste good.

First they pot-distill a vodka from expensive viognier wine. Then they blend it into an excellent column still wheat vodka. Here's the magic: there's no harsh alcoholic smell or taste, just soft beautiful purity.

Hangar One's 'straight' vodka is a blend of grain (wheat) neutral spirit and a vodka crafted from viognier wine. They use the viognier vodka to diminish the alcoholic overtone found in most other vodkas.

Viognier is an old varietal wine grape that makes a delicious white wine, but it's relatively new to California. Viognier grapes are hard to grow, and they don't produce a whole lot of fruit.

To get the full flavour, you have to pick them when they're perfectly ripe. 'But despite, or perhaps because of, this precariousness [the viognier grape] has the most amazing clear, golden colour and the aroma of flowers and fruits at their freshest.'