The Best Brands of Sustainable Vodka

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).

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?

Check medication, before consuming grapefruit gin. Choose soda water mixer (over tonic water due to quinine) for some medical conditions (liver failure, blood thinners, antibiotics and anti-depressants.

Corks are too dense to compost (and choking hazards if left around). So recycle them at your local off license, or send off in bulk to Recorked.

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.

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.

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!

The Best Brands of Artisan Tonic Waters

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.

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

Pure Organic Vodka (from an Essex boy!)

Pure Organic Vodka is a good brand of vodka, founded by a young Essex entrepreneur. It also comes in a light lower calorie version.

This ambitious young man (who used to work as a Saturday boy in a supermarket and now has his sights on becoming an organic eco-entrepreneur) has recently launched two flavoured organic vodkas (both vegan-friendly): caramel and peach/grapefruit.

Fatty’s Organic Vodka from London

Fatty’s Organic is a small range of spirits founded in Dulwich (London). ‘Fatty’ is the childhood nickname of the founder (given to her by her two older brothers) and she turned her hobby into a business, enabling her to leave her previous career as a sports agent.

Fatty’s Organic Vodka is made with fermented grain. The bottles are sprayed with organic ink, and screen-printed at low temperatures, to be kinder to the planet. Cork closures are sealed by hand with wax.

Tipsy Wight: Foraged Vodkas from Isle of Wight

Tipsy Wight makes nice hedgerow vodkas, from ingredients foraged on the Isle of Wight. Locals pick ingredients like sloe, wild cherry, plum, and crab apple each season.

The infusions taste like the fruit itself, not a synthetic syrup. You’ll catch subtle notes of blossom, green leaves, and stone fruit, plus just the right amount of sweetness. The range includes:

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

Respirited Vodka (made with surplus grain)

Respirited is a unique brand of vodka, made from surplus grain, rather than from new crops. It’s made with green energy and sold in recycled bottles. The bottles also feature eco-corks, compostable closures and biodegradable recycled labels.

For the ideal tipple, pour a measure over a glass of ice with a couple of squeezed fresh lime wedges, and top with soda water. Garnish with a wedge of fresh lime.

For a bloody Mary, pour a serving over a glass of ice, then add a squeeze of lemon, a pinch of salt and top with tomato juice. Garnish with a celery stick.

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).

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