"Nobody in the world knows what vodka is made out of, and the reason I tell you this is that the story of vodka is the story of Russia. Nobody knows what Russia is made of, or what it is liable to cause its inhabitants to do next." - Notes from Will Rogers' 1924 trip to Russia.

In Praise of Vodka
Ken Smith

The taste they say for they must
or they feel that they must so they say
so they say they say it has none
there's no taste, just water.

Water: the glassy lake Christ trod,
a bowl Herod rinsed his fingers in,
the rain falling on Troy's ruins,
last word last balm of the living.

The same water, over and over. They say
for they say for they must so they say
we're running out running dry but there's always
the same amount as there's always been.

It's we who are more. As for myself
I've spent all my days working out
just what little Miss Peaches might like
and I'm due a day off for the rest of my life.

So out of the freezer the bottle, the green
frosty bottle, its label iced in cyrillic,
the glass and the water beside the glass.
Russische. Moskovskaya. Stolichnaya.

So this is the taste of nothing:
nothing then nothing again. Nothing at all.
The taste of the air, of wind on the fields,
the wind through the long wet forest.

A stream and the rain. I lie in my yard
and open my mouth to the moon and the down falling rain
and the rods of its words speak over my tongue
to the back of my throat and they say.
Voda
Water
Vodka

Voda
Water
Vodka

Voda
Water
Vodka

Voda
Water
Vodka

Hear Ken Smith read his poem.

Buy the book.

Top Five Vodka Drinks:

5. Gimlet
4. 007
3. Bloody Mary
2. Cosmopolitan
1. Martini

E-Verse Radio Unbelievable But Real Film Titles of the Week:

Gunblast Vodka (2000)

Blame It on the Vodka (1992)

Potapych: The Bear Who Loved Vodka (2006)

Last Vodka (1998)

Vodka, Winter and the Cry of Violin (2002)

"I should like people to read my work and think it was like drinking lemonade, only to find a little later that it was strongly laced. I'd want it to go down like lemonade but to hit them like vodka." - Alan Brownjohn

Watch the 1st half of the TV episode, with live vodka, at:

www.eversevideo.com

A cool guide to poets' graves:

http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk

E-Verse Radio Invaluable Facts of the Week,
courtesy of Tastings.com

The story is told that in A.D. 988 the Grand Prince of Kiev in what is now Ukraine decided that it was time for his people to convert from their pagan ways to one of the monotheistic religions that held sway in the civilized countries to the south. First came the Jewish rabbis. He listened to their arguments, was impressed, but ultimately sent them away after remarking that the followers of Judaism did not control any land. Next came the Moslem mullahs. Again he was impressed, both with their intellectual arguments and the success of Islam as a political and military force, but when he was told that Islam proscribed alcohol he was dismayed and sent them away. Finally came the Christian priests who informed him that not only could good Christians drink alcohol, but that wine was actually required for church rituals such as communion. That was good enough for the Grand Prince, and on his command his subjects converted en masse to Christianity.

The point of this historical anecdote is that the Slavic peoples of the north and their Scandinavian neighbors took alcoholic drinks very seriously. The extreme cold temperatures of winter inhibited the shipment of wines and beers, as these relatively low-proof beverages could freeze during transit. Until the introduction of distilling into Eastern Europe in the 1400s, strong drink was made by fermenting strong wines, meads, and beers, freezing them, and then drawing off the alcoholic slush from the frozen water.

The earliest distilled spirit in Eastern Europe was distilled from mead (honey wine) or beer and was called perevara. Vodka (from the Russian word voda, meaning water) was originally used to describe grain distillates that were used for medicinal purposes. As distilling techniques improved Vodka (Wodka in Polish) gradually came to be the accepted term for the spirit, regardless of its origin.

Vodka is the dominant spirit of Eastern Europe. It is made by fermenting and then distilling the simple sugars from a mash of pale grain or vegetal matter. Vodka is produced from grain, potatoes, molasses, beets, and a variety of other plants. Rye and wheat are the classic grains for Vodka, with most of the best Russian Vodkas being made from wheat while in Poland they are mostly made from a rye mash. Swedish and Baltic distillers are partial to wheat mashes. Potatoes are looked down on by Russian distillers, but are held in high esteem by some of their Polish counterparts. Molasses, a sticky, sweet residue from sugar production, is widely used for inexpensive, mass-produced brands of Vodka. American distillers use the full range of base ingredients.

There are no uniform classifications of Vodka. In Poland, Vodkas are graded according to their degree of purity: standard (zwykly), premium (wyborowy) and deluxe (luksusowy). In Russia Vodka that is labeled osobaya (special) usually is a superior-quality product that can be exported, while krepkaya (strong) denotes an overproof Vodka of at least 56% ABV.

In the United States, domestic Vodkas are defined by U.S. government regulation as "neutral spirits, so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color." Because American Vodka is, by law, neutral in taste, there are only very subtle distinctions between brands. Many drinkers feel that the only real way of differentiating between them is by alcohol content and price.

Kubanskaya - Vodka flavored with an infusion of dried lemon and orange peels.
Limonnaya - Lemon-flavored Vodka, usually with a touch of sugar added.
Okhotnichya -"Hunter's" Vodka is flavored with a mix of ginger, cloves, lemon peel, coffee, anise and other herbs and spices. It is then blended with sugar and a touch of a wine similar to white port. A most unusual Vodka.
Pertsovka -Pepper-flavored Vodka, made with both black peppercorns and red chili peppers.
Starka - "Old" Vodka, a holdover from the early centuries of Vodka production, which can be infused with everything from fruit tree leaves to brandy, Port, Malaga wine, and dried fruit. Some brands are aged in oak casks.
Zubrovka - Zubrowka in Polish; Vodka flavored with buffalo (or more properly "bison") grass, an aromatic grass favored by the herds of the rare European bison.

In recent years numerous other flavored Vodkas have been launched on the world market. The most successful of these have been fruit flavors such as currant and orange.

Ian Fleming described his most famous character's favorite drink like this: "A medium Vodka dry Martini - with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred."

Vodka is the most popular distilled spirit in the US.

"Passing the vodka bottle. And playing the guitar." - Keith Richards, on how he keeps in shape

http://www.avclub.com/content/blog/flops

"Percy Shelley liked the Delphic slogan 'Know thyself,' but in life went for the voluptuous self-pity that animates so many of his poems" says Adam Kirsch: Read

"The coffeehouse: a place for bourgeois people to talk without an eye to church, family, or state. For Jürgen Habermas, the modern world begins here". Click here...

"Cosmology is in big trouble. While there is in sight no alternative to the Big Bang, that is not an adequate reason to accept it" Click here...

"Philip K. Dick went from genre hack to literary genius. He wrote his speed-fuelled novels in the 1950s, went mad in the 70s, and died at 53 in 1982": Click here...

"Art auctioneers have lots of money but no prestige. To be respected ladies and gents, they need to get into bed with hoity-toity museum curators": Click here...

"I have been racking my brains to find a single non-smoker among the great English poets or novelists of the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries. Possibly, Keats had to lay off the pipe tobacco a bit after he developed tuberculosis. Otherwise, from Swift and Pope to Cowper and Wordsworth, from Byron to Charles Lamb, they were all smokers." Click here...

Fleming's Follies:

Smirnoff Tea Partay (West v East)

Absolut Riot

Russians and their vodka:

Vodka Song - Sonata Arctica

Bollywood Absolut ad

Boris Yeltsin - enjoys the odd drop of vodka

E-Verse Radio Bad Book Cover of the Week, Summoned to Tourney by Ellen Guon:

Go to Punk Rock Penguin

Glass of vodka

Daily shchi with yesterday's kasha

2 glasses of vodka

Suckling pig with horseradish

3 glasses of vodka

Horseradish, cayenne pepper and soy sauce

4 glasses of vodka

7 bottles of beer

Listen to this episode at: www.everseradio.com/audio

Acetic acid is a type of acid, which, when diluted, is vinegar. Acetic acid can be used to sweeten onions by masking their sulphur compounds.

Ascetic means denying oneself bodily pleasures on moral or religious grounds. An acetic would not spend the evening drinking vodka.

"The relationship between a Russian and a bottle of vodka is almost mystical." - Richard Owen

Middelfart, Denmark

E-Verse Radio collective noun of the week:

A vomit of vodka drinkers.

For Girly Drinks click here...

Hilbertian Sonnet of the Week:
On Boarding a Soviet Attack Submarine
Ernest Hilbert

B-39, "Foxtrot"

Proud thug, wintry brute, black-bolted mauler,
Charred casing of dark steam and long nightmares,
I've known the vast dread your power incites.
Hauled along the quay, ruined old brawler,
Cauterized by war's exhausted affairs,
Vodka-singed glint stalked through whisked ocean nights,
Savage lure and sinker, you must miss your
Arctic slink of missiles, Odessa's steps.
Sleeping needle, provoker of great duels,
I climb through your massive, silent boiler,
Locate my home on your yellowed war maps,
Lurk in your sullen coil, feel long-spent fuels.
In your grim hull, gorged with bergs and snowy kings,
My heart sinks, scrapes; it sings and sings and sings.

"I have a punishing workout regimen. Every day I do three minutes on a treadmill, then I lie down, drink a glass of vodka and smoke a cigarette." - Anthony Hopkins

Reports from the E-Verse Universe

A long-time E-Verser writes in for your advice:

"Myself and few other Irish-heads are leaving the mother country and flying over the Atlantic to spend a couple of weeks on the West Coast between Vegas and San Francisco in a couple of weeks. Do any of your E-Versers have any recommendations of must-sees/eats/dos/other for us greenhorns? Preferably something off the beaten track!"

[Let's help 'em out. Please post suggestions on this entry, and I'll include them in the next newsletter. - E]

Another:

"I like your closing sonnet very much! Yes, 'more than watches and sedans' indeed: great line! And on the subject of baseball -- about which I know next to nothing -- do you know the other two great baseball poems? I mean, of course, 'Pitcher,' by Robert Francis, and 'Body and Soul'" by B. H. Fairchild."

Another, on Casey at the Bat:

"Do you know there is a poem called 'Casey's Revenge' which is a quite funny and clever reworking. It's in the Golden Treasury of the Familiar edited by Louis Untermeyer."

An E-Verser writes in for your guidance:

"I'm interested in doing a cross-curricular project (RE, History and Art) on 'New Age' religion with some of my students, but I want to do some research of my own first. Specifically, I'm interested in trying to trace some kind of genealogy of modern new age ideas from theosophy/anthroposophy, Jung all the way through to modern spiritual self-help and stuff like Deepak Chopra. What I'm trying to find (and can't) is some kind of detached and scholarly history of this whole phenomenon which sets out to chart what ideas, individuals and trends have influenced others and of key motifs and themes that keep emerging. Can you put out a request to E-Versers to see if anyone is aware of sensible and reputable works that loosely fit this description?"

A reader answers:

"Try New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought by Wouter Hanegraaff as a starting point. Seems akin to what you're looking for."

Next week's episode: The Law! You can fight it, dodge its long arm, and lay it down. Send in quotes, poems, and top five lists on The Law.

E-Verse Radio is getting a buzz from this vodka. Wow. It is a regular weekly column of literary, publishing, and arts information and opinion that has gone out since 1999. It is brought to you by ERNEST HILBERT and currently enjoys over 1,500 readers. If you wish to submit lists or other comments, please use the same capitalization, punctuation, and grammar you would for anything else intended for publication. Please send top five lists, bad movie titles, limericks, facts, comments, and new readers along whenever you like; simply click reply and I'll get back to you.

Audio and video segments are produced by Paul Fleming.

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