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{{about|the book|the history of vodka|Vodka#History}}
{{Infobox book
| name          = A History of Vodka 
| title_orig    = История водки
| translator    = [[Renfrey Clarke]]
| image         = Istoriya vodki cover.jpg
| caption = First edition softcover, featuring 19th-century [[lubok]]
| author        = [[William Pokhlyobkin]] 
| illustrator   = 
| cover_artist  = 
| country       = former [[Soviet Union]]
| language      = [[Russian language|Russian]]
| series        = Популярная кулинария (Popular Cookery) 
| subject       = Priority of vodka production and other Russian alcoholic beverage issues
| genre         = 
| publisher     = [[Inter-Verso]]
| release_date  = 1991
| english_release_date = December, 1992 ([[Verso Books]], hardcover)
| media_type    = Book 
| pages         = 288 (1991 edition)
| isbn =  0-86091-359-7
| isbn_note = (1992 edition)
| dewey= 663/.5 20
| congress= TP607.V6 P6513 1992
| oclc= 28183139
| preceded_by   = Urho Kaleva Kekkonen
| followed_by   = Foreign Policy of Rus, Russia and the USSR for 1,000 Years in Names, Dates and Facts
}}
'''''A History of Vodka''''' ({{langx|ru|«История водки»}}, [[Romanization of Russian|Romanized]]: {{Transliteration|ru|Istoriya vodki}}) is a book by [[William Pokhlyobkin]]. Although the work had been finished in 1979, it wasn't published until 1991, just before the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]]. The book is both an academic [[monograph]] and a nationalist polemic claiming that [[vodka]] originated in Russia.<ref name="Snow"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jacobs |first1=Adrianne K. |title=V.V. Pokhlëbkin and the search for culinary roots in late soviet Russia |journal=Cahiers du monde russe |date=1 January 2013 |volume=54 |issue=1-2 |pages=165–186 |doi=10.4000/monderusse.7930}}</ref>

The book was popular in Russia, and was the origin of the myth that Poland attempted to sue Russia in international court over the trade rights to the word "vodka". No evidence for such a lawsuit has been found.<ref name=Schrad /> In 1993 the book received the [[Langhe Ceretto Prize]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2284205|title=Вкусные рассказы Вильяма Похлебкина|trans-title=Delicious Stories by William Pokhlyobkin|date=13 October 1996|website=[[Kommersant]]|language=ru|access-date=27 August 2025}}</ref>

==The book==
After years of what he claimed was painstaking research, Pokhlyobkin concluded that Russia's first grain-based vodka could have been [[distilled]] at the premises of the [[Chudov Monastery]] in the [[Moscow Kremlin]] by a monk called [[Isidore (inventor)|Isidore]] circa 1430. Apparently, the distillation technology spread to the city of [[Moscow]] itself in 1440s. Pokhlyobkin suggests that both [[prohibition]] and [[drunkenness]] are scourges which encourage one another. He suggests that irresponsible and uncultured ways of consuming vodka make people drunk, not vodka itself.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-16-oe-tarta16-story.html |title= Vodka, elixir of the masses |work= Los Angeles Times |author= Joseph Tartakovsky| date= 2006-04-16 |accessdate= 2022-06-09 }}</ref>

The later Russian editions include the 2005 softcover issue by [[Tsentrpoligraf]] ({{ISBN|5-9524-1895-3}}).

===Reception===
Three years after the publication the book was criticized by David Christian in ''[[Slavic Review]]''. He cast doubt on statistics presented in the book. In Christian's opinion, the definitions of such terms as distilling and state monopoly were so vague that it was hard to understand how Pokhlyobkin offered firm dates for their first appearance. The arguments about the first usage of the word "vodka" were marked as convoluted, messy, and repetitive, as well as sometimes self-contradictory and unconvincing.  Christian also pointed out at anti-capitalist polemics and [[Stalinist]] snobberies of the book.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Christian |first1=David |title=Review: A History of Vodka. By William Pokhlebkin. Trans. Renfrey Clarke. New York: Verso, 1991. Dist. Routledge, Chapman and Hall, xvi, 222 pp. $29.95, hard bound. |journal=Slavic Review |date=1994 |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=245–247 |doi=10.2307/2500349 |jstor=2500349}}</ref>

George E. Snow, reviewing the book for the journal ''[[Russian History (Brill journal)|Russian History]]'' in 1993, describes the book as existing to support the position, for legal and political reasons, that vodka originated in Russia. Snow described the book as succeeding in this argument, despite some factual errors and other issues.<ref name="Snow">{{cite journal |last1=Snow |first1=George E. |title=Review of A History of Vodka |journal=Russian History |date=1993 |volume=20 |issue=1/4 |pages=265–266 |jstor=24657298 |issn=0094-288X}}</ref>

Another criticism provided is that Pokhlyobkin improperly emphasized ''On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol'' by [[Dmitriy Mendeleyev]], as he used Mendeleyev's data in a speculative way to ascribe the eminent "biochemical and physiological properties" to solution of spirit and water.<ref>{{cite book | last =Дмитриев | first =И. С| script-title=ru:Национальная легенда: был ли Менделеев Д. И. создателем русской "монопольной" водки?|language=ru}}</ref>

in 2014, Professor Mark Schrad demonstrated that much of the history contained in the book was likely fabricated by Pokhlyobkin. In particular, Pokhlyobkin claimed that he was commissioned to research the history of vodka as a result of an international trademark dispute filed by Poland against the Soviet Union for the exclusive right to use the term "vodka" in marketing, but in fact this trademark dispute never occurred. It is unclear why Pokhlyobkin fabricated this story. Additionally, Pokhlyobkin's sources for many of the other details in ''A History of Vodka'' could not be verified, leading Schrad to believe that these claimed sources likely never existed and casting doubt on the integrity and veracity of the entire work.<ref name=Schrad>{{Cite book |last=Schrad |first=Mark |title=Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-19-975559-2}}{{br}}Excerpt:{{br}} {{cite web |last1=Schrad |first1=Mark |title=Murder, intrigue, and the mysterious origins of vodka |url=https://www.salon.com/2013/08/24/murder_intrigue_and_the_mysterious_origins_of_vodka/ |website=Salon.com |access-date=28 October 2025 |date=25 August 2013}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of national drinks]]
* [[Protected designation of origin]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=esHVFxS0F8YC English translation of the book]

{{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Vodka, A}}
[[Category:Russian non-fiction books]]
[[Category:1991 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Economic history of Russia]]
[[Category:Books about economic history]]