Bonnie: I learned to drink vodka in Moscow in the ’70s when on a French-speaking tour of the then USSR. I didn’t speak French.

The food was horrific; the beverages worse. Each meal consisted of some unidentified diced ingredients and a slab of protein aspic. Vodka was the only thing to drink, as I had been told by someone who spoke English that the water, milk and coffee contained bacteria or something else that westerners would want to avoid.

I survived on the bread — dark, with a chewy crust and interior — buttered and topped with caviar. To wash it down, I drank straight Stolichnaya.

In the ’80s, at a press event at New York’s Russian Tea Room, I learned why drinking vodka like water didn’t knock me out. Diminutive Darra Goldstein — that’s in size not stature – introduced her now well-known book, “A Taste of Russia: A Cookbook of Russian Hospitality” – and did shots of straight vodka during her talk.

Darra shared the secret she had learned in Russia: Just be sure to first coat your stomach with fat and the alcohol won’t hit you. It didn’t affect her; it hadn’t affected me.

By the ’90s when I was invited to Sweden as a guest of Absolut, vodka had become my drink of preference. In Stockholm at my first comparative vodka tasting, I learned that this neutral beverage should have no odor or color. In fact, our government defines vodka as “a neutral spirits product without distinctive character aroma, taste or color.”

There are, for sure, differences in taste — ones that go fairly unnoticed when combined with a mixer. And, of course the proof (or alcohol content), makes a difference. Wódka Vodka is 80 proof. Much of the other differences are in perception based on advertising.

With prices now up to $70 a bottle for some vodkas, I just had to try triple-filtered Wódka Vodka, selling for about $9 for a 750-ml size. The Beverage Testing Institute gave it an “Exceptional” rating of 90 out of 100, along with three other low-priced vodkas. Roberto Cavalli Vodka, for comparison, received a 91 and costs $61.99. Which would you mix with a spicy tomato juice mixture for a Bloody Mary?

So, just in time for your Super Bowl party, we thought we’d share the details of the reasonably priced, good tasting Wódka Vodka. It may not be available in all areas of the country yet – but just keep asking for it.

Bryan: Vodka to the People! Why must the spirit industry go the way of clothing and cars? Why can we not all agree that brand doesn’t always equal quality? Or at least that cheap doesn’t always equal bad? Well, one vodka company is bucking the Grey Goose trend, and has decided that its traditional Polish recipe will be “call” good, with “well” prices (meaning the quality of a brand name for the price of a non-branded bar vodka).

All too often, an antique, rustic label on a boutique food product equals quality, but also high price. Well, don’t let Wódka’s old-school label fool you; it is true quality but it’s also dirt cheap at about $9/bottle! That’s almost 3-1 for your money over traditionally recognized brands!

Wódka is imported from Poland and is made in the Polish tradition, being distilled from rye. This spirit is legit, a true representation of the original drink. A classical vodka structure, Wódka offers pleasant medicinal notes with herbal hints of lavender and rosemary, all in complete balance with a clean, fresh finish.

Wódka proves an old adage that you don’t need to be expensive to be good. The price of vodka has simply gotten out of control. Too many rappers, too many elite names, too many concept cocktails… It’s just too much green nowadays for a bottle of “little water.”

Wódka is bringing a good cheap drunk back to the people! And it isn’t all just talk and buzz. Wódka is triple filtered with the last filtration being charcoal, meaning that Wódka would be classified as Lux grade (the same as many top-shelf selections).

The vodka is good, but the bottle is tremendous, true Cold War Chic, and inspired by the actual bottle produced by the old Soviet-sponsored Polish vodka monopoly, Polmos. The Polish state-owned monopoly controlled the USSR-era alcohol market and Wódka’s unique look was based upon an actual bottle found during a walk-through of the old Eastern Polish distillery. The brand’s bottle and taste are both based upon traditions from the true founders of vodka, the Polish people.

Eric: I was sitting around a table in Charleston, SC having a “heated” discussion about the characteristics of vodka with the president of W.J.Deutsch & Sons, the wine importers, when he turned to me and the rest of the table (including PR representative Barbara Scalera and Chef Bob Waggoner), and said “Enough debate. Let’s have a tasting.” Five minutes later, there were five shot glasses sitting in front of me, each filled with a brand-name vodka. As the tasting commenced, so did the discussion….

Simply put, (and my argument), vodka is a tasteless, odorless, neutral spirit — it is a base alcohol with no defining characteristics other than the production method used to distill it. The blind tasting in Charleston proved just that – the majority of the table chose the cheapest of the vodkas as the tastiest (and no, it wasn’t Popov). Those who chose the cheapest were shocked; their usually discerning palettes tricked by blind deception.

After such an explanation, I find it ironic that we’ve chosen a vodka as a Bite of the Best. How can one neutral spirit be better than another? The answer boils down to price point and “heat,” the burn that you feel in the back of your throat after drinking cheap alcohol. The price point of $8.99 per 750 ml bottle is unheard of in the world of premium vodka (compare it to Belvedere or Ciroc at $29.99), and the “heat” is not there.

Wódka is a triple-filtered grain alcohol – no potatoes in this Polish soup – that is redefining premium vodkas. Although the price point for most vodka brands is based on marketing, it all boils down to taste, image and affordability — Wódka is the next step in the vodka revolution.