Tasting the Soil.

First, a confession: I am a gin lover. I like tasting the notes of juniper or pepper or cucumber in my liquor.

Vodka, in my experience is odorless, and, by extension, largely tasteless. This is because most vodka is filtered so many times--a process made necessary because cheap, inferior raw materials, mostly grain and corn are used in its production.

Filtering strips the spirit of any of its charateristics, its origins. And no matter how pretty the label or how hip the spokesperson, it's not a satisfying drinking experience.

It wasn't always so.

Vodka was orginally made from potatoes. Potatoes that smelled of the earth, that tasted of the soil where they grew.

I recently had the pleasure of tasting Karlsson's Gold, a hand-crafted vodka made of 100%virgin new potatoes. Its creator previously launched Absolut. Now it's trying to take on the marketing behemoth.

You can read all about this upstart vodka at http://www.karlssonsvodka.com. But I suggest you plunk down $30 and try it for yourself.

I've served it twice to vodka lovers, who raved about its terroir , asking for second and third refills--without lime, easy on the rocks. They inhaled deeply before sipping.

While it may not appeal to the mass market, I suspect Karlsson's will find a clientele of discerning drinkers.

Though it hasn't supplanted my beloved gin, it has changed my mind--for the better--about a category I previously dismissed.