J.A.Baczewski-Vodka-An-Illustrated-History

Once flavoured vodkas and liqueurs had settled themselves nicely intothe glasses of consumers throughout Europe, scientists began researchattempting to determine once and for all who had invented the beverage,and what its ideal strength should be – both in regard to the taste and,as it so happened, in terms of economics.Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, known above all for compiling the periodic tableof the elements in 1869, could claim the best (or rather the best-publicised)results. On 31 January 1865 he defended, in public, his dissertation entitled‘On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol’, in which – among other things– he was the first to explain the phenomenon of so-called contraction involume (a physical phenomenon where the volume of a solution or mixturechanges as a result of chemical reaction or intermolecular interactionsbetween the mixture’s ingredients).As the subject was interesting, information about the discovery spreadrapidly and before long Mendeleev was attributed with expressing theview that vodka tastes best when containing just under 40% of alcohol.