Apparently water filters make cheap vodka taste ten times better so I tried it out

Recently I was swiping through TikTok when there were far better things I should’ve been doing with my day. Suddenly I came across a video which explained how one could make really shitty vodka taste marginally less shitty with nothing more than a water filter. “No way” was my first reaction. Surely any impurities would’ve already been filtered out through the process of producing alcohol for general consumption? Well, according to some people, this can make it taste as good as Grey Goose. GREY GOOSE.

Regardless, as an avid drinker, this was rather exciting. I’m not really a vodka person but, if true, this could make for a revolutionary experience for theboys™ pres across the land. Think of a world where you’d NOT have to pour even stronger liquids into the concoction to prevent you from throwing up! So, rather than do what most people would do (which is Google it or go to the comments section), I headed straight for the nearest Tesco branch to test this out.

Picking up the supplies

It was important when choosing the vodka that it should be as repulsive and cheap as possible in order to potentially show this life hack as worth doing. Yeah, there were your usual offerings from Smirnoff and Russian Standard, but then I saw it:

I don’t want to do my man Tesco like this, but when I saw their own brand vodka at £6 for 350ml it brought me right back to headachey memories of terrible SU nights with terribler people. Yup, this has got to be some of the cheapest and most repugnant liquid that hath ever passed my lips, and it is PERFECT.

Once purchased, it was time to find a water filter, and no expense was going to be spared on this front. £16 later for a brand new Brita water filter, and a venture back to the booze aisle for another obnoxious photo, we were ready to get this experiment underway.

Trying the vodka without filtration

Now came the least enjoyable part of the whole process – comparing the taste of the vodka beforehand for comparison. The gentle circling of the nose above the liquid was enough to fill your nostrils with a hateful chemical stench, but that wasn’t going to be the worst of it.

I am not being dramatic by saying that this vodka tasted exactly like paint thinner, and not even the good stuff that your dad had to confiscate from you as a child. If you imagine the same kind of assault on the tastebuds that is provoked from drinking poppers, you still wouldn’t be left with half the foul taste left in the mouth.

I could go on and on about how awful it tasted but you already know. Essentially, it tasted like absolute shit.

1x filtered vodka taste test

Now comes the part that you clicked on the article for.

There was going to be no half-arsery going on here, so I said goodbye to my six quid investment and dumped the entire thing into my poor little filter. As it dripped down, I had a brief second to reflect on just how fucking insane this experiment is and crossed my fingers that the vodka was going to make the filter more sterile than broken for future liquid filtration (whiskey, anyone?).

After I washed my mouth out to reset my palate, I tentatively poured the vodka from the filter and did the sniff test. Would it be suddenly odourless, without even the slightest chemical smell? Like fuck. This was not a good sign for things to come.

Down the hatch and you can imagine the shock I had when this actually kind of worked. We’re not talking stick a sparkler in it and sit it down at the nearest overpriced booth at the local club, but there was definitely a smoothness that it didn’t have before.

But we could do so much more. Have I wasted my 3:48 on a Tuesday afternoon over some slightly less awful Tesco vodka? No, because we’re going to turn the filtration up a notch and filter this motherfucker 10 TIMES.

10x filtered vodka taste test

That’s right, we’re going full X Games mode on this, especially now that I’m semi-licked from a singular empty-stomach shot on a Tuesday afternoon. Pouring the 1x filtered vodka back into the rinsed out bottle, I repeated the process nine more times to produce 10x filtered Tesco vodka, and now my girlfriend is joining the process as an extra element to the taste assessment. I’m telling you now, if this doesn’t taste like Grey Goose then I’m having words with whoever made that TikTok.

A peculiar observation was that the more I filtered the vodka, I saw small black bits appear around the filter. Unsure if this is due to it being the cheapest vodka you can get or just sediment from the natural manufacturing process, but it was slightly disconcerting to see.

Down the hatch again, and again I’ve done something that is quite miraculous, but admittedly completely not worth the effort. The general consensus from our tasting group of two is that the vodka tastes EXACTLY the same as it did before it was filtered, but has little to no “bite” to it.

There’s certainly less repulsion when taking a shot of this compared to before, but half of the disgust from drinking vodka is in the flavour alone, right? So, in conclusion, if you don’t want to waste half an hour putting vodka through a water filter just so that your vodka doesn’t make you want to vomit as much, I’d recommend you don’t try this.

Anyone want a half-drunk bottle of 10x filtered Tesco vodka? Starting bids at £6.50.

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