Number 29 in the periodic table is copper. That is not a flourish invented for a label but the single thing this whole vodka rests on: the metal in the still, the spiral in the bottle, and the reason the spirit needs no filtration afterwards.
Expert description
Element 29 Vodka Copper Edition is an English Vodka from Element 29, distilled from English wheat in a copper pot still and bottled at 40%.
The still has a name and an age. She is called Angela, was hand-hammered by John Dore & Co in their London workshops in 1903, and has therefore passed a hundred years of service. A pot still of that kind distils more slowly than a modern column, but in far closer contact with the metal.
And that is the point. Copper conducts heat evenly and at the same time binds the sulphur compounds that would otherwise lay a note of struck match and boiled vegetables into the spirit. Remove them on the way through and there is nothing left afterwards to cover up, so the house neither filters nor adds flavouring.
The raw materials are English wheat and spring water from Sussex. The Copper Edition bottle drops a copper spiral into the glass itself as a nod to the still — decoration rather than part of the process, but it makes the bottle hard to miss on a shelf.
Tasting notes
Nose
Fresh and clear with a distinct lift of pepper. Behind it sits a trace of anise and a dry grain note.
Palate
Full and broad with the natural sweetness of wheat through the middle. A fine herbal thread runs across it, which keeps it from turning round and dull.
Finish
Clean and dry, with the pepper returning briefly right at the end.
Specifications
Name: Element 29 Vodka Copper Edition
Producer: Element 29
Region/Country: England
Type: English Vodka
ABV: 40%
Size: 70 CL
Distillation method: Distilled in a copper pot still, neither filtered nor flavoured
Edition: Copper Edition
Serving suggestion: Ice cold in a small glass, or in a Vodka Martini where the pepper gets room.
Flavour profile
Peppery · Dry · Grain-sweet · Herbal
Did you know?
John Dore & Co was founded in London in 1835 by the Irishman Aeneas Coffey and is regarded as the oldest distillery engineering business in the world. That is the same Coffey who gave his name to the Coffey still — the basic shape of virtually all continuous distillation since.
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