Crystal Head Vodka John Alexander Artist Series

Crystal Head is distilled in Canada from corn and cut with water from Newfoundland. Corn gives a naturally sweet, clean and neutral spirit, and the distillery pushes that further by running it through seven distillations before filtering it through layers of Herkimer diamonds, a quartz crystal mined in New York State. The result is a spirit free of additives such as glycol, sugar or citrus oils, which many vodkas use to smooth out the mouthfeel. For this Artist Series the liquid is unchanged, but the bottle carries colourful work by John Alexander, so each one doubles as an object as much as a drink.

The nose is clean, fresh and faintly sweet, the palate soft and mild with that corn sweetness and a light cereal note, and the finish is clear and lingering. With nothing added and a body this rounded, it is best kept simple: pour it slightly chilled into a frozen Cosmopolitan, shaken hard with cranberry, a measure of triple sec and a squeeze of fresh lime, where the vodka's clean sweetness carries the fruit and the drink looks the part next to the bottle it came from.