Grain mash vs Sugar wash

[Nick]

Want to use my new stainless steel, reflux tower still to make a premium vodka. Most of the commercial ones I like are made from grains (Skyy, Grey Goose, etc.) ... I see them made from corn, grapes and of course potatoes. But I do not see any made from Sugar, yet that seems to be the bulk of the vodka recipe I can find.
Will a sugar wash or MUM recipe produce the same quality vodka as an all grain recipe? If so, why don't commercial distillers use sugar?
Please advise
Thanx
Nick

[MuleKicker]

I think people confuse "vodka" with "neutral" spirit. Vodka is made from grain and has some flavor carried over. Neutral is just that, alcohol with as little, or no flavor as possible. If you are going for a neutral, my opinion is, why do anything other than sugar. Its easy. Your trying to remove all flavors, so why do the work of mashing a grain if your going to remove all the flavor. It may take a real snob to nit pick vodka from neutral. Another thing is availability. You use what you have. If you have an abundance of grain, I guess your using grain. Im rambling.

[NcHooch]

I'll take a crack at this ...

IF YOU were fixin to make the BEST possible vodka to set yourself apart from the rest of us , would you use sugar? ...or develop a natural, all-grain recipe that produced an exceptional distillate that you could brag about?

I recon the truth of the matter is, there are likely, many vodkas and neutral spirits that are created using some sort of sugar wash, but most, if not all the prem vodkas are using grain for their wash .

Grain will always make a better drink than sugar (there are some exceptions), and distillers know this... and their marketing departments market their booze on this principle.