Smirnoff Black Small Batch Vodka

Smirnoff traces its history to the Smirnov family of pre-revolutionary Russia, and the brand was the first to use charcoal for filtering vodka. Smirnoff Black revives the older recipe, distilled in small batches in a copper still over 150 years old, using selected grains and the brand's signature charcoal filtration. The slower, lower-yield process sacrifices volume to preserve more of the grain's natural flavour, so this bottling keeps a fuller character than the everyday label at 40%.

The nose is silky with cereal notes, the palate is rounded and silky with clear grain character, and the finish is long. Because this version actually has grain flavour worth tasting, the best way to meet it is neat: keep the bottle in the freezer and pour a small measure ice-cold into a chilled glass. The cold thickens the texture and lets the silky cereal note show, the way the small-batch process intended.