Premium luxury vodkas are like snake oil: You pay more and more for a drink whose characterful marketing spiel seeks to justify a product increasingly refined into neutrality. What is interesting about Golovkine is not the 100% French wheat from Beauce, or it\'s five initial distillations in the Charentes region giving ever more exquisite refinement and purity but the all important and unique sixth distillation through old alembic copper stills used for Cognac. This final, inspired treatment ensures Golovkine has a depth of flavour and the merest hint of smokiness, as if tasted from warm, full Russian lips recently done sucking on a Gauloises.