Vodka 03: Mapping the Vodka Flavour Camps
A guided breakdown of vodka’s flavour potential by ingredient, texture, and camp.
Vodka may be distilled to near-neutrality, but that doesn’t mean it’s flavourless—especially when you start to notice the subtle signatures that different ingredients and distillation methods leave behind.
Last lesson, we ended on this:
Vodka’s supposed neutrality is a bit of a myth, one that marketing has done a great job of embedding. But the real story is much more interesting. Vodka is a category defined by restraint, not absence. Flavor is there—it’s just wearing a minimalist outfit.
But if vodka’s flavor is minimalist, how do we describe it without defaulting to the usual clichés?
Enter: the Flavor Camp System.
Why “Neutral” Isn’t Enough
By Canadian standards, vodka is required to be distilled to 95% ABV so as to be “without distinctive character, aroma, or taste.” But without distinctive doesn’t mean without anything. It means that its flavor can’t be dominant, recognizable, or obviously derived from a specific ingredient like juniper, peat, or grape skins.
So what are we actually tasting in that quiet 5%?
Not terroir, exactly.
Not botanical identity.
But texture, mouthfeel, and traces of the raw material, what I call flavor ghosts. And once you know what to look for, they’re hard to ignore.
Introducing the Flavor Camp System
The Flavor Camp framework is how we train our palates at Flavor Camp—whether we’re sipping vodka, mezcal, or amaro. Each camp helps capture a different cluster of flavors, aromas, or sensations that show up repeatedly in tastings.
For vodka, that includes:
🍋 Citrus (lemon, grapefruit, yuzu)
🌱 Green (grassy, vegetal, rooty)
🌸 Floral (lavender, rose, chamomile)
🍎 Fruit (apple, pineapple, stone fruit)
🍞 Toasty (caramel, brioche, cereal grain)
🥛 Creamy (buttery, oily, milky)
🎁 Treat (corn syrup, vanilla, brown sugar)
🌶 Spiced (pepper, ginger, clove)
🪵 Earthy (damp soil, mulch, petrichor)
🪨 Mineral (chalk, graphite, saline)
⚗️ Chemical (alcohol, nail polish remover, astringent)
These emojis are a great shorthand for discussing the taste profiles online by the way.
