Sean Connery’s James Bond was known to enjoy vodka between exploits. Take it like he did. Everett Collection

I went to Siberia once. That’s not a metaphor. I flew to Novosibirsk, a Russian city northeast of Kazakhstan, and then ventured out into the taiga to experience the Siberian ritual known as the banya, which is sort of a sauna treatment with a touch of Fifty Shades of Grey. The banya involves sitting in a room as hot as a pizza oven and being smacked with branches from a birch tree until you can’t take it anymore, at which point you flee the steam, douse yourself with cold water, and lie naked in the snow. I recommend it.

When I was finished being parboiled and spanked, I put on my clothes and wandered into a dining room, where I found something of a gift. At every place setting waited a bottle of local vodka. Each person who had endured the banya received his own. If I hadn’t given vodka much serious thought before my trip, that dinner in Siberia turned my head around, so to speak. In the warmth of that room, surrounded by the bracing cold of a Russian night, shots of clear elixir just made sense, like rum in the Caribbean or single malt in the Hebrides.

In the years that followed, I watched vodka itself get spanked by cocktail snobs who viewed it as little more than a crude delivery system for alcohol (Death & Co, the famous bar in New York City’s East Village, refused even to stock it), and mostly I kept my mouth shut during that dark period while happily storing several bottles of the stuff in my freezer at home. I like to sip something when I’m cooking, and for my money, few countertop companions are more satisfying—in both the haze of summer and the dead of winter—than cold, viscous vodka in a small glass, all by itself. Its bracing austerity is precisely what makes it appealing.

A few bartenders may’ve tried to banish it to Siberia (that is a metaphor), but people should drink what they want. I recommend it.

Vodka with Verve

Sipping it chilled? Go for a bottle with nuance and proudly consider yourself a vodka connoisseur. ­—­Kevin Sintumuang

Nikka Coffey Vodka

Zesty, creamy, smooth.

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Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka

Lightly sweet, very luscious.

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St. George Green Chile Vodka

Farm-fresh flavors.

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Absolut Elyx

Chalky yet perfectly crisp.

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Polugar Classic Rye Vodka

Rich and breadlike.

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This article appears in the September '19 issue of Esquire. Subscribe Now

Jeff Gordinier Jeff Gordinier is Esquire's Food & Drinks Editor.

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