They are doing horrible things to vodka. Unspeakable things.

Vodka used to come in one flavor: vodka.  Vodka was vodka flavored.  That was fine.  If you wanted a drink of vodka, you got a drink of vodka.  Maybe it was Sunday and you put tomato juice and spices in it and it was a Bloody Mary, but it was still vodka in there.

Then people started dropping produce in vodka and letting it sit for a while and making infused vodkas.  This was somewhat OK, I guess.  I had a cucumber vodka once that was interesting.  There was a whole bar on 2nd near the Giants' stadium (which was then Pac Bell Park, I think) called INFUSION that specialized in infused vodka.  OK, whatever.

Apparently convinced that the palate of the drinking public now more closely resembles that of a 6-year-old child than a Soviet truck driver, vodka manufacturers have now departed reality and begun producing a whole slew of Children's Birthday Party Vodkas.

These are ACTUAL FLAVORS of vodka made by Pinnacle, a cheapish vodka owned by Jim Beam which, according to its website, "starts with the finest wheat grain from the Brie region of France" but ends up at Safeway for $9.99:

Cookie Dough Vodka
County Fair Cotton Vodka
Cake Vodka

I don't even know what "County Fair Cotton" vodka might possibly taste like.  Organic Textile Vodka?  Dress Short Vodka?  800 Thread Count Vodka.  But none of these are as nauseating as Pinnacle's newest innovation:

That's right, the two things that make airports bearable, Cinnabon and booze, together at last!  How the fuck you make a vodka taste like the pure fat/sadness of a Cinnabon is beyond me, but the Morbidly Obese Alcoholic in your family finally has a product custom tailored to his or her needs.  As long as we're doing airports, Pinnacle, I eagerly await Panda Express Vodka and Pizza Hut Express Vodka.

I shouldn't say that, because I imagine pizza vodka is not far off.

Not that Pinnacle is alone in this Alchemy of the Damned.  Smirnoff now makes Iced Cake Vodka, Fluffed Marshmallow Vodka, and Cinna-Sugar Twist Vodka, so when it's your turn to be Drinks Mom at soccer practice, you know where to start.

As a humorous sidenote, Smirnoff also makes a line of malted beverages/teenage alcohol gateway products called Smirnoff Ice, including such flavors as Smirnoff Ice Pineapple which I bet smells just as bad puked up behind Taylor's house at 12:30 a.m. as it did when you opened it after shoplifting it from Lunardi's.

Stick with whiskey.