Stoli Vodka Review

This herbaceous and peppery vodka is bolder on the palate than other bottles, but it's still versatile: It works well in stirred drinks and also holds up to heavy Eastern European foods like roe and smoked fish.

Tasting Notes

Color: Clear

Nose: Subtle and balanced notes of sweetness and herbaceousness

Palate: This vodka fills the mid-palate with wheated sweetness, and then segues into a prickly, peppery finale. Its body offers a pleasing weight that fills all parts of the mouth equally and blankets the entire tongue.

Finish: Herbaceous and peppery, dry in the midpalate, with a long delicately bitter, tongue-sucking dry finish

Our Review

Stoli is a vodka with backbone. Vodkas often prioritize a neutral, blank-slate palate, but this bottle's flavors hold a presence, either sipped neat or mixed into a variety of vodka cocktails.  

The vodka starts out a little cereal sweet, likely from the wheat that is part of its base, and then grows in herbaceous, peppery dominance from the rye that composes the rest of the recipe. Its flavors and pleasant weightiness cover every part of your tongue, and stand up nicely to heavy, flavorful foods. Chilled and consumed neat, it makes a good accompaniment to many Eastern European dishes, especially roe and smoked fish.

Officially named Stolichnaya until March 2022, Stoli has a complicated relationship with Russia: It originated as a state-produced Russian vodka sometime around the turn of the century and was trademarked in the former Soviet Union in 1938. But it has been made in Latvia since 2000, when its ogliarch owner Yuri Shefler was exiled from Russia for speaking publicly against Vladimir Putin. The company completely rebranded itself as Stoli in response to confusion over its Russian roots after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.