Finlandia Vodka

CockTale: I was really in the mood for Greyhounds (vodka & grapefruit) and we were headed to a friend's house for the night and figured I could try just about any vodka because I really haven't found a good go-to vodka - and you can probably tell because vodka has been reviewed on C&R more than any other type of booze to date. Trying Finlandia vodka was just a jerk reaction, actually I saw that they made a grapefruit flavored vodka but it was only 35% instead of 40% and that kinda bugged me that adding the grapefruit flavor would rob you of 5% more alcohol. So I figured I could just try the regular Finlandia instead and add my own grapefruit. My night with Finlandia led me to create a new term - "JAV" or Just Another Vodka. There is gut rot vodka and premium vodka and in the middle everything else is JAV. I won't drink gut rot vodka (see Burnett's Vodka) because you can find a JAV for darn near the same price and there is a good chance you are mixing it with something and it doesn't really matter if you spent $14 on it or $20 on it. To get a premium vodka you need to both spend a lot of money and find the right one. There are plenty of bottles that carry a $30-$40 price tag that are JAVs and there are very few that are so nice that you want to drink them over ice or maybe use in a vodka tonic. My point in all of this is that Finlandia is a JAV, does nothing to separate itself from the pack and does nothing to put it in the gut rot category either. If you are going to mix it, then why not go with Finlandia. - They should use that as their new slogan.....

Review:

Taste: Doesn't have the cheap vodka after taste, goes down smooth and has good smell. I was impressed, but not impressed enough to take it out of the JAV category or to consistently drink it straight. "3"

Price: $17.99 for a fifth. This is a little too high for me, there are plenty of other JAVs that are lower than Finlandia and it doesn't make sense to add the extra buck or two. "2"

Novelty: There isn't really anything to talk about. There is no cool slogan or marketing campaign, the bottle is pretty sleek but doesn't really do anything for me. Nobody is saying, wow you brought Finlandia over to my house, cool! "1.5"
Hangover Factor: I made a pretty good dent in Finlandia and woke up the next morning and was able to coach T-ball by 9:30am, so I guess that is a pretty good endorsement? "4"
Drunk: I'm going with JAV as my word- just another vodka drunk. "2"

I don't want to give the impression that I didn't like Finlandia, I liked it just fine, but in the end there is really nothing that makes it separate itself from the almost endless selection of vodkas at the liquor store. For this JAV, this overall score seems to tell the story perfectly - overall "2.5"