Vodka (Polish: wódka, Russian: водка) is a distilled beverage composed primarily of water and ethanol, sometimes with traces of impurities and flavorings. Vodka is made by the distillation of fermented substances such as grains, potatoes, or sometimes fruits or sugar.

Traditionally prepared vodkas had an alcoholic content of 40% by volume.^{[citation needed]} Today, the standard Ukrainian, Polish, Russian,Latvian and Lithuanian vodkas are 40% alcohol by volume (ABV) or 80proof. The European Union has established a minimum of 37.5% ABV for any "European vodka" to be named as such.^[1][2] Products sold as vodka in the United States must have an alcoholic content of 30% or more.^[3] For homemade vodkas and distilled beverages referred to as "moonshine", seemoonshine by country.

Vodka is traditionally drunk neat in the vodka belt countries of Eastern Europe and around the Baltic Sea. It is also commonly used in cocktailsand mixed drinks, such as the Caesar, Bloody Mary, Screwdriver, Sex on the Beach, Moscow Mule, White Russian, Black Russian, vodka tonic, and in a vodka martini.

The name "vodka" is a diminutive form of the Slavic word voda (water), interpreted as little water: root вод- (vod-) [water] + -к- (-k-) (diminutive suffix, among other functions) + -a (postfix of feminine gender).^[4][5][6]

The word "vodka" was recorded for the first time in 1405 in Akta Grodzkie,^[7]the court documents from the Palatinate of Sandomierz in Poland.^[7] At the time, the word vodka (wódka) referred to chemical compounds such asmedicines and cosmetics' cleansers, while the popular beverage was calledgorzałka (from the Old Polish gorzeć meaning "to burn"), which is also the source of Ukrainian horilka (горілка). The word vodka written in Cyrillicappeared first in 1533, in relation to a medicinal drink brought from Poland to Russia by the merchants of Kievan Rus'.^[7]