Green on the Rocks: Your Guide to Sustainable Vodka

Vodka is a high-percentage spirit alcoholic drink that is usually made with wheat or potatoes. It’s name means ‘water’ but it’s not! Yet despite obviously not being safe near animals, in veterinary medicine, one of its components is used to treat anti-freeze poisoning in pets.

Rather than buy multi-national big brands, why not try some homegrown artisan brands? 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).

Most artisan spirits are mixed with tonic water, and quinine should be avoided for some medical conditions (and pregnancy/nursing, but then hopefully you’re not drinking vodka anyway). Also check medication before consuming grapefruit or rhubarb tonic waters. Keep citrus fruit garnishes away from pets.

For glass bottles, cork is too dense to compost, so recycle at off licenses or send off in bulk to Recorked (don’t leave them lying around, they are choking hazards).

Before recycling cans, rinse then pop ring-pulls over holes. Then step on cans to ‘pinch’ inner rims together, to avoid wildlife getting trapped. 

Saplings Spirits: World’s First Climate-Positive Vodka

Sapling Spirits is made with British wheat and plants a tree for each bottle sold. You’ll find a unique code on each bottle tells you what tree was planted (and where). Try it in this apple and ginger spritz.

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.

Tipsy Wight (made with foraged fruits)

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

Pure Organic Vodka (from an eco Essex boy!)

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

Respirited (from surplus grain and green energy)

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.

Clean V (no-alcohol alternative to vodka)

Clean V is a no-alcohol botanical infused spirit to replace vodka, if you are not drinking or reducing alcohol. Crafted by an award-winning team of flavour experts using high quality ingredients, this is perfect to let you enjoy a tipple, but without the booze!

It’s made with:

• Fresh wheat
• Rye
• Orange
• Ginger
• Pimento
• Cinnamon

How to serve Clean V

• Mix 50ml Clean V with soda water.
• Top with ice.
• Garnish with a lime wedge.

All drinks by Clean Co are made in Manchester with vegan ingredients. All are packed in recycled glass bottles with Flexi-Hex compostable packaging. Once opened, drink within 3 months.

Who founded Clean Co?

Clean Co was founded by Spencer Matthews, who years ago was one of the stars of the popular TV reality show Made in Chelsea, following the real-life exploits of wealthy youngsters in London.

Spencer himself was a bit of a party boy, but things were getting out of hand. He decided to go teetotal, conquered Mount Everest (to try to find the body of his brother who went missing while ascending the summit). He never found him, but he did find someone else’s relative, and his family paid for the body to be returned, so that family could have a proper send-off.

After realising he felt so much better without alcohol, he launched this company which is now the most successful independent alcohol-free brand in the world. All with good sustainable credentials.

Recently, Ben Stokes OBE (one of the world’s best-ever cricketers) has come on board as a partner and investor. Impressed with the drinks, after being open about giving up drinking, in order to cope with mental health problems. His openness in talking about his anxiety and depression, has inspired many men to open up to others.

Arrowtown vodka sodas (profits 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