UV Vodka

It's the beginning of the month, which means we have money. Yay! So I stopped a Spec's on the way home to pick up a bottle of Castillo rum, which is a great inexpensive rum produced by the Bacardi company. For the price, I can't taste any difference between it and the top-shelf sibling, so hey, I swear by it. I also picked up a bottle of Creme de Cacao for The Wife, who has developed an affinity for chocolate martinis. Those two selected, my next item on the list was a bottle of vodka.

Holy crap, but vodka is expensive.

A bottle of Absolut like we'd bought on our Caribbean cruise for $12 this summer cost $30-something. Ouch. Even Tito's, a well-regarded brand distilled in Austin, cost $17. I didn't consider any of the Russian vodkas, since Pootie-Poo and the Kremlin gang aren't really our friends anymore. What I wanted was the vodka equivalent of Castillo rum--a top-shelf liquor at bottom-shelf prices. I ultimately settled on a $12 bottle of UV Vodka, an utter unknown to me. But what do you know? I got lucky. Online reviews give this one high marks overall, and more than a few express surprise at its cost-to-quality ratio. It certainly makes a kick-ass chocolate martini, as The Wife (who is picky about what she drinks) gave it a happy thumbs up.

Now all I need is to find good but cheap brands of tequila and gin, and I'm all set. And also, if Wild Turkey would slash their prices in half, that would help as well.

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