USKO Original comes from Spirits of Virtue, a company founded by brothers Roddy and Kerr Nicoll. The water is the starting point: sourced from the Cairngorm mountains, where it filters through granite for over fifty years before emerging at Deeside. To that go vegetable glycerine, natural botanical extracts, and food acids, which together give the drink a slight weight and clarity that reads like vodka without any alcohol involved. The aroma is clean and faintly mineral, with a quiet warmth underneath from the botanicals. On the palate it is rounded and gently sweet from the glycerine, with soft acidity providing the illusion of structure. The finish is short and neutral, fading to a faint herbal whisper. There is not much to pull apart, and that is the point: it is designed to stay out of the way of whatever you mix it with. It works best as a background spirit in long drinks where vodka would normally be invisible anyway. A soda and lime, a non-alcoholic Moscow mule, or the base of a longer cocktail build. Neat is not where this shines.