Vodka is a distilled beverage. It is a clear liquid which consists of mostly water and ethanol purified by distillation—often multiple distillation—from a fermented substance, such as grain (usually rye or wheat), potatoes or sugar beet molasses, and an insignificant amount of other substances such as flavorings or unintended impurities.Fact: date=July 2008

Vodka usually has an alcohol content of 35% to 50% by volume. The classic Russian, Lithuanian and Polish vodka is 40% (80 proof). This can be attributed to the Russian standards for vodka production introduced in 1894 by Alexander III. According to the Vodka Museum in Moscow, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (more famous for his work in developing the periodic table) found the perfect percentage to be 38. However, since spirits in his time were taxed on their strength, the percentage was rounded up to 40 to simplify the tax computation. At strengths less than this, vodka drunk neat (without ice and not mixed with other liquids) can taste "watery", while strengths above 40% may give the taste of vodka more "burn". Some governments set a minimum alcohol content for a spirit to be called "vodka". For example, the European Union sets a minimum of 37.5% alcohol by volume.

Although vodka is traditionally drunk neat in the Eastern European and Nordic countries of the "Vodka Belt", its popularity elsewhere owes much to its usefulness in cocktails and other mixed drinks, such as the bloody mary, the screwdriver, the white russian, the vodka tonic, and vodka martini.

Etymology

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the name "Vodka" is a diminutive of the Russian word voda (water).

The word was recorded for the first time in 1405 in the court documents from the Palatinate of Sandomierz in Poland; at these times the word referred to medicines and cosmetics.Fact: date=December 2008 A number of Russian pharmaceutical lists contain the terms "vodka of bread wine" (водка хлебного вина vodka khlebnogo vina) and "vodka in half of bread wine" (водка полу хлебного вина vodka polu khlebnogo vina). As alcohol had long been used as a basis for medicines, this implies that the term vodka could be a noun derived from the verb vodit, razvodit (водить, разводить), "to dilute with water".

Bread wine was a spirit distilled from alcohol made from grain (as opposed to grape wine) and hence "vodka of bread wine" would be a water dilution of a distilled grain spirit.

While the word could be found in manuscripts and in lubok (лубок, pictures with text explaining the plot, a Russian predecessor of the comic), it began to appear in Russian dictionaries in the mid-19th century.