Repeated ice distillation, much like how Paul describes the apple jack process.
1. Buy shitty vodka in large quantity.
2. Do this
It won't make well liquor into Belvedere, but it'll at least make it mid-grade for taste (and impurity) purposes.
turn shitty vodka into palatable vodka
I keep my cheap vodka in the freezer and it doesn't freeze at all.
Now, on Mythbusters I saw them run vodka through water filters.
Some alcohol critic was able to grade the vodka in a blind taste test, and he could tell which glasses had gone through filters the most. That is, I think they filtered vodka 6 times (saving some from each filtration) and he was able he got all but 2 in the right order.
The more it was filtered, the better the vodka.
Now, on Mythbusters I saw them run vodka through water filters.
Some alcohol critic was able to grade the vodka in a blind taste test, and he could tell which glasses had gone through filters the most. That is, I think they filtered vodka 6 times (saving some from each filtration) and he was able he got all but 2 in the right order.
The more it was filtered, the better the vodka.
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode50
Vodka can be turned into high-quality vodka through charcoal filtration.
busted
Through a double-blind taste test, the cheap vodka seemed to taste better with every subsequent filtration, although the top-shelf vodka beat them all. However, a chemical analysis showed no actual difference between the filtered and unfiltered cheap vodka.
Filtering isn't feasible (takes too long, doesn't have a big enough effect, diminishing returns). You need more than cool air to drop the temperature enough. Putting the vodka in a container and putting that into another container with some superchilled water (any standard deicer works well to drop the temperature) used to do trick for me (and maxing out the freezer setting). My liquor budget hasn't been restrictive as of late, so it's been a bit since I've done this (hell, I think last I did it, I was still an undergrad, if not high school).
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."