Assembly Line

How vodka is made

Vodka is distilled until almost nothing but alcohol is left, then watered down to bottling strength.

stations
7
things upstream
27
raw sources
15
steps from the ground
6

The short version

Vodka is ethanol and water. Grain or potatoes are cooked, fermented, and distilled over and over in column stills until almost pure alcohol is left. That neutral spirit is filtered, diluted with water to bottling strength and bottled. Unlike whiskey, it is not aged in wood, and it has no required flavor.

  1. Cook the starch

    Grain such as wheat, rye or corn, or potatoes, is cooked in water so the starch breaks down. Enzymes then convert it into fermentable sugar.

    Goes in
    WheatCornPotatoesWaterRye

  2. Ferment the mash

    Yeast eats the sugars and produces a weak, beer-like alcoholic liquid. A few producers start from a plain solution of sugar and yeast instead.

    Goes in
    Baker's yeast

  3. Strip off the alcohol

    The liquid is boiled in a still and the vapors are condensed to a stronger liquid. Repeating the process with column stills makes a spirit that is nearly pure alcohol.

  4. Rectify to neutral

    Further stages remove flavor-bearing compounds until the spirit has almost no taste or smell of its own. Many bottlers buy this neutral spirit in bulk from a few large distilleries.

    about 95% pure grain alcohol

  5. Filter through carbon

    Some producers pass the spirit through charcoal to polish it. Filtering is optional in the US.

    Goes in
    Charcoal

  6. Cut with water

    Water is blended in to bring the alcohol content down from nearly pure to bottling strength. Standard vodkas are bottled at 40% alcohol by volume.

    40% ABV

    Goes in
    Water

  7. Bottle it clear

    The vodka is bottled, usually straight away. By US rules it cannot be aged in wood.

    Goes in
    Glass bottle
End of the lineVodka

Worth repeating

  • The English word vodka comes from Russian and means little water.
  • The European Union sets a minimum alcohol content of 37.5% for vodka.
  • A blind test run by the NPR program Planet Money found negligible differences in taste between brands of vodka.
  • In 1782 J. A. Baczewski opened Poland's first industrial vodka distillery in Lwów.

Back to the ground

Follow every input upstream and vodka starts as these 15 raw sources.

WheatCornPotatoesWaterRyeTimberSilica sandLimestoneSugarcaneSugar beetRock saltTronaNatural gasAirCrude oil

Everything it is made of See it on the map

Open the whole family tree

Keep walking

Toluene 5 stations · 4 raw sources Refrigerator 11 stations · 27 raw sources Cough syrup 8 stations · 18 raw sources Wine 8 stations · 21 raw sources Condom 9 stations · 13 raw sources Maple syrup 7 stations · 1 raw source

Surprise meConnect this to something else

Sources

Cite this page: "How vodka is made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/vodka

Spot a mistake on this page?