Review: Cirrus Vodka

Review: Cirrus Vodka

Review: Cirrus Vodka

With its sun-and-cloud logo and baby blue color scheme, what would you expect from the 80-proof Cirrus Vodka? Something light, summery, perhaps partly cloudy even.

Well you can’t judge a book by its cover nor a vodka by its bottle: Cirrus is serious stuff, heavy duty vodka that, if I didn’t know it was from Virginia, would swear was drawn from the teat of Mother Russia herself.

Crack open the bottle and get a whiff. No need to get up close, Cirrus fills the room with its aroma of medicine and rubbing alcohol promptly. Distilled from potatoes, old-school-like, Cirrus has an Old World structure from start to finish. It’s a little tough to drink straight. Lemon peel is there as is some herbaceousness, maybe flowers. But a moderate bitterness is a little rough on the finish, and the medicinal notes are heavy. It improves, surprisingly, as it warms up.

Fine in cocktails, I found it tough to enjoy straight. It’s also very hard to find, by the way, mainly in cities near Virginia.

80 proof.

B- / $22 / cirrusvodka.com

Cirrus Vodka

$22
7

Rating

7.0/10

A veteran journalist, the author of four books, a published poet, and an award-winning winemaker, Christopher Null has more than 25 years of experience writing about wine and spirits. He founded Drinkhacker in 2007. He also writes regularly about the science of booze for WIRED and is an occasional contributor to ADI's Distiller magazine. He has been a judge for both the American Distilling Institute Judging of Craft Spirits and Whiskies of the World spirits competitions and often works as a consultant, developing formal tasting notes for spirits brands around the world.

4 Comments

  1. cange on September 15, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    Hi, I live in VA and yeah, not a huge fan. There is a vanilla that reminds me, seriously, of Little Debbie snack cakes. I don’t know either. But it’s in there and it’s just not like any other vodka I’ve tried. I thought, Hey, it’s local and it’s better for the environment if I drink this and not something from Poland, but I just can’t get past the strange taste.

  2. CANGE on October 30, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    It’s much much better now. Cirrus has had ups and downs, I guess they’re doing OK financially now. The thing I’m sure about is that the vodka is better. I now agree 100% with Mr Null’s 2008 review.

    • J Norton on July 9, 2022 at 5:09 am

      I live in North Carolina where they don’t sell it. My sister, who lives in VA brings me a bottle each visit. I love it. It’s the best Vodka I’ve had.



  3. Cange on November 2, 2019 at 5:16 pm

    I’m still in VA and now think it’s almost excellent vodka. B+ And it’s not the only good Va vodka. Easy to drink local in VA.

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