The Best Brands of Sustainable Vodka (and tonic)

 

 

Vodka is a high-percentage spirit alcoholic drink that is usually made with wheat or potatoes. Rather than buy multi-national big brands, why not try some homegrown artisan brands?

Fatty’s Organic vodka is made in Dulwich, London.

Corks are too dense to recycle and are choking hazards, so send off in bulk to Recorked, if your local off license does not collect.

Check medication before drinking tonic water (contains quinine). Also avoid tonic water for pregnancy/nursing (but hopefully you won’t be drinking gin anyway).

Sapling Climate Positive Vodka (with local wheat)

Sapling Spirits is the world’s first climate-positive vodka, which plants a tree for every drink enjoyed. Made with British wheat, a unique code on each bottle tells you what tree was planted (and where).

For a bloody Mary, pour over ice, add lemon, a pinch of salt, tomato juice and garnish with a celery stick (use vegan Worcestershire sauce, for a spicy version).

A recent study found that the average bottle of vodka uses 2.8kg of carbon before it reaches the customer. Made in London, this uses charcoal filtered water, to leave a hint of natural sweetness.

So far, the company has planted over 300,000 trees (both in the UK and abroad), and saved over 300,000 bottles from landfill.

The range includes standard vodka, plus a raspberry hibiscus pink vodka, which makes use of wonky raspberries, that would otherwise have gone to landfill. Hibiscus should be avoided for pregnancy, but then hopefully are not drinking vodka anyway?

There’s also a regenerative vodka, made with eco-farmed wheat that is a tasty mix of toffee, cereal, earth and chocolate orange!

Bars and restaurant buying wholesale use refillable 5 litre eco boxes, which saves 7 bottles from ever being created. The bottles are also made from 40% recycled glass, and use natural corks.

Other good brands of sustainable vodka

Pure Organic Vodka was founded by an Essex boy, and includes a low-calorie version, and flavoured vodkas (caramel and peach/grapefruit.

Respirited is made with surplus grain and green energy, sold in recycled bottles with compostable closures and biodegradable recycled labels. Serve over ice with squeezed fresh lime and soda water.

Tipsy Wight makes hedgerow vodkas, from ingredients foraged on the Isle of Wight. Locals pick ingredients like sloe, wild cherry, plum, and crab apple each season. The range (most vegan) includes:

• Cherry
• Damson
• Elderflower
• Medlar
• Quince
• Wild Plum
• Wild Garlic

Fentimans Artisan Tonic Waters (Northumberland)

Fentimans (Northumberland) makes a wide range of botanically brewed tonic waters, made with herbal infusions from lemongrass to Sicilian lemon oil.

Tonic water is mostly served as a mixer for gin and vodka, or sometimes alone as a refreshing drink. But it was originally used to help prevent malaria, as it contains quinine (from the bark of the cinchona tree).

It was so bitter that medics added gin, to make it more palatable. Modern tonic waters don’t have as much quinine, and are generally sweeter.

Other artisan tonic waters

• Luscombe (Devon) blends Dartmoor spring water with wild or organic fruits, and Indian quinine. Also in flavoured versions (elderflower and grapefruit) and a Light version (sweetened with fruit sugar, with Japanese yuzu).
• Daylesford makes organic tonic water with dandelion, instead of quinine. Containing far less sugar, it’s bottled on a family farm in Devon. Choose from Light, cucumber, wild elderflower or Damescena rose.

Arrowtown Vodka Sodas (to help the oceans)

Arrowtown Drinks make vodka sodas in easy-to-recycle cans, like ‘hard seltzers’, so less alcohol than vodka (around 5%, the same as beer but lower in calories).

Always pop ring-pulls over holes and pinch top before recycling, to avoid trapping wildlife (also rinse cans to avoid sweet liquids to tempt).

Healthier than a gin and tonic, but less puritanical than drinking a glass of water! For every can sold, the company remove 2 plastic bottles from the oceans, in partnership with an organisation abroad.

They employ people in developing countries to remove ocean plastic from the ocean, which is then sold for recycling.

This brand was inspired by two young brothers, who with the wisdom of a couple of university students (not much!), decided it would be fun to take on the world’s biggest brands of sugary seltzer drinks, by offering something better, and which helped wildlife too.

Choose from four flavours:

• Black Cherry & Apple
• Peach & Raspberry
• Lime & Elderflower
• Mango & Pineapple