Friday read: Vodka – more than a mixer

By Anna Hamill

Published: 14 March, 2025

Anna Hamill, London MD for drinks brand specialist Denomination, explains how vodka can overcome its 'generic' European image.

“Tito’s and tonic”. “Belvedere Soda”. Sit at a bar anywhere in North America and you’ll hear people confidently ordering vodka drinks by brand name. In fact, vodka remains the biggest spirits category in the US by a significant margin, selling a staggering 74.1m 9L cases in 2024; more than double that of tequila and mezcal (32.3m) American whiskey (30.3m) and rum (20.7m).

In Europe, however, vodka doesn’t carry this same cachet. Sit at an upmarket hotel bar and you’ll hear tequila drinkers asking for Don Julio, while in North London’s vinyl bars or latest small plate pop up, you’ll catch someone asking for an East London Liquor Company gin and soda. The bar call culture is there; it just isn’t there for vodka brands right now.

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How can vodka brands tackle that issue? After all, this is vodka’s moment. For years, it has been stagnant or declining while brown spirits boomed and a gin craze swept through Europe, but now that’s changing. The back bar’s workhorse is getting its time in the spotlight, begging the question: what can vodka brands do to build brand recognition and desire, moving beyond its commoditised stigma in the European market? It won’t surprise you to hear that I have a few ideas.

Finding a new story

As momentum builds in the category, standing out is crucial for brands to claim a place in bar call culture. To become the vodka that people ask for by name, marketers must find interesting, distinctive ways to interweave their brand into the lives of their core audience. Determine what makes this vodka special, and share that in a compelling way, with storytelling that also shines through in design.

To date, vodka has built its reputation on purity, smoothness, and complex distillation processes. While these characteristics hold value, they no longer captivate audiences seeking adventure and excitement in their drinking experiences. In fact, they keep vodka in its lane as maskable mixer, rather than an exciting, versatile liquid in its own right.

To keep pace, vodka’s future lies in a pivot from purity to versatility and creativity. At the moment, flavours are stealing the stage – whether in the form of ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails infused with fruity and spicy elements, or spirits like aged whiskey and mezcal that offer bolder and more complex profiles, sipped neat to deliver a real hit of flavour. As Gen Z move away from flavoured gins, there’s real potential for vodkas to explore flavour variants, but be mindful of innovating for innovating’s sake: considered variations that align to the brand have the edge over an onslaught of new expressions.

The rise of the martini is a clear opportunity for vodka; especially as some palates simply don’t like the juniper base of gin (the traditional base for a martini). As the iconic cocktail continues its It girl-led comeback (see Hailey Bieber’s martini-themed birthday party), vodka-based martinis that facilitate different types of twists (think dirty, brinier and more savoury than ever) feel like a natural cultural force to tap. Just as French vodka brand Grey Goose tapped Paris Hilton as its ‘Creative Director of Martinis’, embrace marketing that leans into the surge in on-premise martini culture.

Embracing healthier lifestyles and ‘clean’ options

Another fast-growing trend in European spirits is the demand for health-conscious and lower-alcohol options. European drinkers are becoming more mindful of their consumption, favouring products that align with wellness goals and moderation.

Vodka brands can take advantage of this shift by creating products that emphasize natural ingredients, lower proof options, and clean flavour infusions with no artificial additives. Kylie Jenner’s 100-calorie, ‘no added sugar’ vodka soda RTD, Sprinter, is a case in point. Established brands could step in with lower ABV alternatives or use calorie-focused marketing to attract the health-conscious who still want to enjoy premium spirits. Better yet, tap demand for health-conscious drinks with more premium and innovative offerings. Think botanical-based drinks featuring wellness ingredients such as adaptogens, or increasingly popular Asian flavours, such as yuzu.

Emphasizing vodka’s purity – the very element once regarded as bland – can be reframed as a health-conscious selling point. With fewer impurities, vodka naturally compliments the clear, clean ethos of wellbeing-centric drinking, offering a guilt-free experience when paired with fresh mixers like soda water and real fruit juice.

As consumers look for value and versatility, having a bottle that can do many jobs when it comes to the serve invites drinkers to invest cleverly in more premium vodka brands, and then diversify flavour through an array of mixers.

Reviving vodka through innovation

True category revival, however, may demand reimagining the product itself. For decades, vodka has adhered to traditional methods – grain or potato bases, filtration, and smoothing out any raw intensity. But recent trends suggest that consumers appreciate diversity and distinctiveness in their spirits.

Innovating with new sources and bases is one pathway. Just as Emma Watson’s gin brand, Renais, has used grape distilling processes to craft an individual product, vodka producers could experiment with rye, rice or barley to create new taste profiles. Highlighting these distinctions through flavour-forward storytelling could resonate with a market curious for more diverse sippable liquids.

Another potential avenue lies in sustainability. For example, Hangar 1 Fog Point vodka successfully married environmental consciousness with premium craftsmanship. By using San Francisco fog as a resource, the vodka represents creativity and care for the planet – a narrative modern consumers love. More initiatives like this could help vodka leapfrog other spirits in relevance and desirability.

Brands must also move away from artificial flavours in favour of natural, premium ingredients introduced during the distillation process. This shift could elevate vodka’s profile, tell a new story beyond filtration and distillation, and invite consumers to reappraise its quality and craftsmanship.

Bringing vodka to Insta-worthy life

Much of a spirit’s on-trade success hinges on how it appears and attracts on social media platforms. Neat vodka isn’t as photogenic as an Aperol spritz in a glass. Fact. But the category can learn from wines and whiskies where the focus is less on the serve, more on celebrating the design-forward nature of the bottle.

Brands like Absolut have benefited for years by making their bottles design statements. Others, like Bird in Hand's wine label, lean heavily on creating aspirational visuals featuring the bottle as a centrepiece in social settings.

It’s time for vodka to move on from imperial and traditional Russian Standard cues and overcome its generic image. A design-forward approach will now push the category into bold new creative visual territories that stand out both in noisy social feeds and on the backbar.

Female founded and owned, drinks brand specialist Denomination has a global reach, but works to help clients reduce their environmental footprint, counting such brands such as Penfolds, 19 Crimes and Chapel Down among its significant portfolio of work.

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