Why we love our Vodka

We eat candy bars, because it’s a tastier sugar delivery system than just eating sugar granules. Some smoke cigarettes, because it was once seen as a status form of nicotine delivery. Chewing tobacco just didn’t have same kind of image.

In many respects, we drink vodka for the same reason. It’s a colorless, odorless, and some argue tasteless alcohol delivery system. Think of it as the alcohol equivalent of soy. It takes on the flavor of what’s added to it.

Given this, why is it so popular and so lucrative? Why has it become America’s spirit. Journalist Victorino Matus looks deep into the bottle to try and find out how Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America.

My conversation with Victorino Matus

THE American Spirit

Few products are more American than Bourbon. In fact some argue that the Kentucky spirit IS the American experience, distilled and sealed in a bottle.

While the English have their Scotch, the Irish their Whisky, Latin America their rum, and Mexico it's cervezas, Kentucky Bourbon is our defining spirit.  So what does this drink say about our character as a nation and how does that history apply to today's America?

Dane Huckelbridge sought to find out and he shares it with us in Bourbon: A History of the American Spirit.

My conversation with Dane Huckelbridge: