Crystal Head

Canada
Taste
7
Aftertaste
6
Design
9
Price
1
5.8

the bottle is a keeper

This is a review of Crystal Head vodka from Canada. I sampled it in Germany in 2011. It’s clear, 40% alcohol, and I thought the taste wasn’t as interesting as the bottle design.

You know the original eighties film Ghostbusters? There’s an actor in it called Dan Akroyd who later became famous as a ufologist and a spiritualist.

And, along with artist John Alexander, he created Crystal Head vodka in the mid-2000s. They market it as a premium vodka that comes in a unique skull-shaped bottle.

crystal filtering

I figured that Crystal Head vodka, being a premium brand that heavily relies on marketing, was bound to have a very slick website. And I wasn’t wrong. The design of crystalheadvodka.com is pretty neat:

Crystal Head vodka website

Lots of videos celebrating shiny skulls.

There’s a dedicated page with a bit of text introducing Crystal Head vodka:

Crystal Head vodka introduction

Turns out they made this from CANADIAN CORN and PRISTINE WATER. They filtered it SEVEN TIMES, three times using HERKIMER DIAMONDS. And the bottle was PRODUCED IN EUROPE with BITS OF CRYSTAL.

I mean, wow.

no, Doctor Jones

I got this bottle as a gift from my friend Steven from Canada. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was the most recent Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie. In hindsight I was lucky that I hadn’t seen it yet at the time. It’s such a terrible movie. Who would have thought that one day Spielberg and Lucas and Ford would all get together and deliver one giant turd?

Seriously, don’t watch Indy fucking around with some crystal skulls. Just don’t.

Crystal Head vodka is mostly about the bottle

Either way the bottle was obviously gorgeous. I looked up the price online, and it turned out to be pretty high – about 44€ for 700ml put Crystal Head vodka smack-dab in Kauffman territory. It would have been a perfect ten in bottle design, but I’ll take one point off for the cork cap. I don’t like cork caps for vodka bottles.

The vodka itself is pretty good. It’s about as smooth as Nemiroff or Absolut, meaning it goes down easily and would do well in a mixed drink. Only the aftertaste lacks a bit of aroma.

what to do with this

I think most people get this one for the bottle, not for the vodka itself. So what I suggest doing is this: chill the vodka and use it in mixed drinks. Then, once it’s empty, you can either use the bottle to build a smoking device or just put some other liquids in it.

Preferably an infusion using a better vodka.