At some point you’ve probably noticed the undeniably cool, skull-shaped bottles of Crystal Head Vodka on the shelves of your local spirits emporium. You’ve wondered how it tastes and pictured the bottle artfully repurposed on your kitchen table full of Cala lilies or perhaps a colorful beta fish. But did you know it was founded by quirky Canadian American actor Dan Aykroyd? Or that it is actually, seriously, filtered through Herkimer diamonds? Or that despite the celebrity affiliation, slick marketing campaign, and distractingly beautiful packaging, it’s actually an ultra smooth, well-crafted premium vodka that would taste great even if it was poured from a nondescript non-body-part-shaped vessel not conceived by an SNL alumnus?
Crystal Head truly is an exceptional spirit, quadruple distilled from peaches and cream corn and filtered seven times to achieve the utmost silky smooth drinkability. Flavors of vanilla and licorice are subtle enough to retain the spirit’s neutrality, but discernable enough to make this vodka worth tasting without a mixer to appreciate its nuances. The distillery’s latest offering, an award-winning wheat-distilled vodka called Aurora, ups the ante on the art nouveau bottles with a shimmering iridescent skull designed to mimic the colors of the Northern Lights. You can just imagine how enchantingly that bottle would highlight the scales of your beta fish…
