Level Vodka

Photo provided

In a world of graphic advertising images, the one created for Level vodka is one of the most captivating -- right up there with the likes of Bombay Sapphire Gin's original glass designs. But, there's a lot more to this super premium niche vodka made by Sweden's Absolut and introduced to the market in 2004.

• Level Vodka:

A faint, pleasant note of lemon emanates from this winter wheat vodka as soon as the bottle is open. It's clean from first sniff to final swallow, something that can't be said about some premium vodkas that have little hot flareups here and there.

Absolut pioneered a continuous distillation in the 1800s that today's Level benefits from. Rather than two, three, four even a half-dozen distillations to remove impurities that coarsen the mouth-feel and flavor of a vodka, Level goes through literally thousands of distillations in the Absolut process.

It also undergoes batch distillation, which is the traditional vodka method, that preserves an actual flavor in a spirit technically known as "colorless, odorless and tasteless," but which we all know isn't strictly true.

I rank Level right up there with the best, namely Chopin and Belvedere.

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