High-powered drinks: cost aside, ultra premium vodka is surging in popularity.

In the shrinking marketplace of distilled spirits, vodka is gaining market share. At 25%, it is the bestselling distilled white spirit in the United States and far ahead of second-place gin, at just over 8%. No small accomplishment for a spirit that was virtually unknown to Americans only 45 years ago.

Federal regulations define vodka as colorless, odorless and tasteless. However, the government ought to take another sip. If vodka is really no more than bottled water with an 80-proof kick, why are Americans consuming over 85 million gallons of it a year? And, why are they now willing to pay nearly twice as much for special vodkas called super or ultra premiums? These vodkas have become one of the hottest selling items on the shelf.

The reason: Americans like change and these vodkas offer something standard vodkas do not--individual character that sets each one apart.

When vodka first made its splash in the U.S., it was its neutrality that brought it fame. It readily combined with everything, from juices and mixers to liqueurs and brandies. Vodka had tang and the additions gave it taste.

Now, along come the super premiums to turn all that around. These vodkas, nearly all imported, accounted for 5 million cases sold in this country last year. What these vodkas offer is a full, smooth and velvety texture with a delicate, almost indefinable aroma--a hint of vanilla or a whiff of berry--that its cousins do not.

Thomas Townsend, bartender at B. Smith's Restaurant at Union Station in Washington, reports an increased demand for super premiums. "They are for drinks where the vodka's individuality is not lost-Martinis, gimlets and Gibsons. They would also be great just straight, but very few Americans take vodka--super premium or not--that way."

Townsend says most people drink super premiums because they have more flavor, more body and are more refined. "Why dilute those qualities in a mixed drink?" he exclaims. Current patron requests at the upscale restaurant/bar are for Ketel One, which is made in Holland; Absolute, imported from Sweden; and Skyy, a rare super premium made in America.

Ultra premiums are really old style, pre-communist vodka reborn. They began in Poland and Russia. Today, Poland sends Wyborowa (Veeba-ROva), a vodka that leaves a whisper of subtle flavor on the tongue. Stolichnaya's Cristall, the first Russian super premium to step from behind the Iron Curtain in the 80s, is a highly refined vodka with a mist of pure and elegant flavor. Smirnoff Black is the newest Russian entry on the world market, but is made on its pre-revolution (1917) recipe that rendered it the preferred drink of the czars for a century.

The Smirnoff family, which had supplied vodka to the czars for a century, left Russia in 1917 taking only one thing of value--its recipes for vodka. Heublein later bought the U.S. rights to the recipes and with them helped change America's drinking habits. But it wasn't until the demise of the Soviet Union that Smirnoff Black could be made once again in Moscow. Unlike most vodka, which is distilled once in large continuous stills, super premiums are distilled up to three times in small copper stills. No surprise then that they cost more--from $15 to $22--than standard vodka.

Distilled spirits manufacturers say people are drinking less but drinking better, and ultra premium vodkas seem to bear that out. So it's no surprise that when patrons ask for a super premium at B. Smith's D.C., they willingly pay more for it. "I think of super premium vodka as I do great wines," says Townsend. "They are deeper flavored, far more complex and finer. I'd say they're ultra-refined."