How Vodka Is Made: From Grain (and Dates) to Bottle

Vodka has a reputation for being neutral, simple, almost characterless. Most of that reputation comes from how mass-market vodka is made — industrial-scale, high-column, stripped to the molecule. Craft vodka is a different story. Here's the actual production chain, from raw ingredient to bottle, and what changes at each step.

Step 1: The base

Vodka can be distilled from anything that ferments — wheat, rye, corn, potatoes, grapes, sugar cane, milk whey, even quinoa. The traditional bases are grain (wheat or rye for European vodka, corn for American mass-market) and potatoes (Polish tradition). At Hollywood Distillery, we use California dates — a base most people have never heard of, which gives the finished spirit a softness and a slightly floral character grain vodkas don't have.

Step 2: Fermentation

The base is mashed (for grain) or pressed (for fruit) into a sugar-rich liquid. Yeast is added, and over three to seven days, the yeast eats the sugars and excretes alcohol. The result is a low-proof beer or wine — around 8–12% ABV — that's about to become much stronger.

Step 3: Distillation

The fermented liquid is heated. Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, so it vaporizes first. The vapor rises, gets caught in a column or pot still, and condenses back into liquid — now much higher in alcohol. Distillers traditionally make multiple cuts: the "heads" (high-volatile compounds, discarded), the "hearts" (the spirit you're making), and the "tails" (lower-quality alcohols, sometimes recycled).

Two main still types matter:

• Pot stills are batch-based, traditionally copper, and produce a spirit with more character — the trade-off is they retain more flavor compounds. Most craft distillers use pot stills for vodka and gin to keep some of the base ingredient's character in the bottle.
• Column stills are continuous, much taller, and strip the spirit down further. Column-distilled vodka is more neutral; this is what most mass-market vodka uses.

Our 1,000-gallon Vendome pot still in Hollywood is copper, batch-based, and lets the date character through to the finished vodka - we also run Oasis Vodka through our vodka column to re-distill it 22 times. 

Step 4: Filtration and proofing

The high-proof distillate (often around 95% ABV) is filtered — traditionally through charcoal — to remove any remaining off-flavors. Then it's proofed: cut with water back down to bottle strength, typically 40% ABV (80 proof). The water source matters more than people realize; cheap municipal water with high mineral content can dull a vodka the producer worked hard to get clean.

Step 5: Bottling

Glass bottle, label, cap, signature on the back. At our scale, every bottle is finished by hand on the bottling line.

Why any of this matters

Mass-market vodka is engineered to taste like as little as possible. Craft vodka is engineered to taste like the base it's made from. If you've only had grain vodka, a date-based vodka is going to surprise you the first time — softer, slightly floral, no rough edges. That difference is the whole reason craft distillation exists.

Where to next

For our specific vodka, see Oasis Vodka — distilled from California dates. Or browse all our spirits.