44 Degrees North Vodka

Potato Vodka Flavored with Huckleberry

Distilled in Idaho

Typical Price: Around $30 for 750ml

I’m Your HuckleberryRemember how cool Val Kilmer was in Tombstone? His three musketeers mustache, his quick gun hand, his dapper manner? We might never be as cool as Doc Holliday [Editor's Note: We definitely won't], but thanks to 44 Degrees North, we can at least tap into our unnatural fondness for huckleberries. In fact, we’ve been wandering around the Liquor Snob offices for the last two days, coughing blood into a little lace handkerchief and saying “I’ll be your huckleberry.”

Note: We’re so excited about reviewing a huckleberry vodka, we’re peppering our review with quotes from Doc Holliday.

The Color: “Very cosmopolitan”

Is clear a color? Cuz that’s what color it is.

The Nose: “In Vino Veritas”

44 Degrees North leads off with a berry nose, and we’re not exactly sure what a huckleberry smells like, but we’ll trust them that this is it. It reminded us of blueberries and didn’t smell overly sweet, and there was definitely a nice, clean alcohol whiff on the back end.

The Taste: “And drunk the milk of Paradise”

This stuff was less sweet, with a more aggressive tang of alcohol than the Zygo we reviewed earlier this week. It’s a more traditional vodka, and while it is sweetened with berries, they’re not overpowering. Drunk straight we found it to be, for lack of a better term, brittle, but as soon as we chilled it or added ice it loosened right up. We enjoyed it as a mixer, but we found ourselves sipping this most often on the rocks where the candy-like flavor of the huckleberries was most apparent.

The Verdict: “You’re a Daisy if you Do”

While Poland is the place we think of when someone says potato vodka, this is definitely a high-end entry, clean and tasty. We figure it’d make a great bottle to keep around in your ski house, so you can sip it with friends and family while wearing turtlenecks by the fire. Actually, that’s not really our style – we’re thinking we’ll fill up our Coldpoles and enjoy a berry boost while we’re on the mountain. Anyway, we definitely recommend it if you can get your hands on it – we liked it just as much or more as any other berry-flavored vodka we’ve sampled in our long and storied history.

Learn more and find out where to pick up a bottle at RockyMountainVodka.com.

44 Degrees North (Idaho): Aw, man, I just HATE infused spirits! But this fine vodka, barrelled with fresh mountain-grown huckleberries, sneaked in under my purist force field and, once it hit my palate, well, that was that.

This is just simply delicious vodka and it’s not, in any way, heavy-handed or overdone.

It may, in fact, be the best infused anything I’ve ever tasted. Light, fresh, aroamtic but not cloying, this is a mad thing to put into the hands of someone who understands and enjoys drink blending. It even has me dreaming up new concoctions, just like it has at least a hundred of the East Coast’s better bartenders.