The Shout‘s sister title, Bars and Clubs recently had the opportunity to sit and talk about Grey Goose, and vodka in general with the brand’s wonderful Cellar Master François Thibault – he also created the recipe for the vodka – and Global Brand Ambassador Joe McCanta.
It was a wide-ranging chat, which we will bring you more of over the coming weeks, but one thing we did get onto is the sipping culture of vodka – or the lack thereof. It has become particularly important to the brand with the launch of Grey Goose Altis, a super-premium version of the vodka.
Speaking about serving vodka in venues, Joe told Bars and Clubs: “This is something that Francois and myself feel very passionate about, and we’ve worked together to help educate people understand about serving vodka.
“We know that you need to serve wine at just the right temperature otherwise it can be unenjoyable. We’re in Australia, it gets warm here, but you can’t serve a big red wine that is warm.
“So, we’re really working to educate people that zero to about four degrees centigrade is the perfect sweet spot for vodka. A lot of people keep vodka in a freezer, but that is too cold.”
The vodka we tasted had been taken out of the freezer about an hour prior to serving, and Joe described it as being at the perfect temperature.
Francois added: “There is a reason that people started putting vodka in the freezer, it’s because they had a bad quality vodka, and serving so cold you can hide the taste. The same as a chef will work to make sure that the food and the plate arrives to you at the perfect temperature, wine is served at a particular temperature, and it is the same for Grey Goose. It is best served between zero and four degrees.”
Joe then explained, “when I do Martini training, I have an infra-red thermometer, and we show people as you perfectly stir a Martini and you pour it into the glass, the temperature is between zero and four degrees. That just shows what is best for Martini, is best for a Grey Goose.”
The development of the vodka serve has been extended by the launch of Grey Goose Altius, and Joe told Bars and Clubs, that he and the Grey Goose team have been working on three serves for the new super-premium vodka.
“Each serve represents a different moment: the first is ‘on the rock’, just think of a really large, beautifully hand-cut, clear piece of ice which you pour the Altius over and it reacts to the ice and the ice dilutes the Altius in a much slower way, which is better for the taste.
“We have also developed a ritual with a new glass, called the ‘snow shot’ – which has never been done before. A little-known fact, but 2000 years ago, Alexander the Great’s luxury as he was travelling through the deserts was that he would bring with him everywhere he went, was a huge box of snow. It was insulated so he could serve his guests sitting in the warm Egyptian sun wine or water over snow.
“I was really inspired by that and developed our own ‘snow box’ which can sit in a bar’s back of house and it’s a machine that can make snow from ice. It stores in the box for five hours, and so it can be brought out to the guest, and we fill each glass with a little bit of snow and pour the Altius over it.
“When you pour the Altius over it, two things happen: firstly all the snow disappears like a magic trick, the other thing is it makes the shot much colder, but it also makes the shot 20 per cent [ABV] so it is much easier to sip.
“Then we have our version of the Martini with Altius, called the Altini, which is a shaken Martini, so you get the agitation that we want, and it is spritzed with French Génépy, a French botanical from the Alpine region.
“With those three serves, we are really focused on putting a limited liquid – very limited quantities – it takes 30 times the amount of time to make one bottle of Altius than it does one bottle of Grey Goose original. So it’s much slower, much more limited, it’s Grey Goose through a different lens and that is the lens of the Alps.
“My job is to educate consumers to sip vodka, and they are getting it, the Martini is back and there’s a push away from those overtly sweet vodka drinks and the Martini is here to stay.”
Find out more about the Grey Goose Altius, including some more recipes and how it is used at the Grey Goose Le Martini Bar in Melbourne.