Hounds Black Vodka: The One Bottle on This Shelf That Isn't Japanese

Almost everything we pour is Japanese. This isn't, and we'll say so up front.

Hounds Black Vodka is made in Niagara, Ontario, by Four One Six Vodka Ltd. It's Canadian, and it's here because it does something nothing else on the shelf does.

Why It's Black

Not dye, and not a gimmick with charcoal.

The color comes from an infusion of fulvic trace minerals and humic acid, compounds that come from decomposed plant matter in soil, and the same family of material that makes peat and rich earth what they are.

They turn the vodka genuinely black rather than tinted. In a clear glass it looks like ink.

What It Tastes Like

Medium-bodied, which is more than most vodka offers.

Notes: Lemon, vanilla, spice, wheat

Finish: Silky, slightly sweet

The minerals give it a faint earthiness underneath the grain. It's not a heavily flavored vodka. It reads as a proper vodka that happens to be opaque.

Bottled at 40%, and it took a Silver at the Bartender Spirits Awards.

Why We Have It

Honestly: because of how it behaves in a drink.

A black spirit does things to a cocktail that nothing else can. Layered over something pale it looks like smoke. Shaken with citrus it goes gray-purple. In a highball it's just black, which is arresting on its own.

We're not going to pretend there's a deep Japanese story here. There isn't. It's a well-made vodka that's fun behind a bar, and sometimes that's the entire reason a bottle earns its place.

How to Drink It

Cold, in something clear so you can see it. A black vodka soda with a lemon twist is the simplest version and probably the best one.

It also makes a genuinely striking martini.

Pair It With

Anything, really. It's a vodka. But it's most at home as a drink you order at the start of a long night rather than something built around food.

Try It at Juraku

Hounds Black Vodka is on the vodka list at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side, next to Kissui and the Oka bottles, which are, for the record, the Japanese ones.