Like the wallflower at a dance, vodka had been content to blend into the background, to provide the potency in the cocktail, but to let the mixers shine. Not happy to sit this one out, today’s flavored vodkas are kicking up their heels and getting noticed, so much so that vodka accounts for more than 25 percent of spirits sales in the United States.

This spirit known for being clear, odorless, and flavorless has come a long way from its beginnings in medieval Poland and Russia. Precisely which country is often the source of some debate, but many believe it is Russia, especially since the name itself stems from the Russian word voda, meaning water.  Made from different types of grain or vegetables including rye, wheat, barley, corn, potatoes, or even grapes, vodka is a purer form of alcohol than others due to a carbon filtering process, which removes impurities created by distillation.

When Vladimir Smirnoff sold immigrant Rudolph Kunett the American rights to his family’s vodka recipe in the 1930s, vodka found its way to the United States. Remaining in the shadows, it only started to gain some popularity in 1946, when the first Moscow Mule—vodka and ginger beer with a splash of lime juice—was mixed up at the Cock ‘n Bull tavern in Los Angeles.

Flavored vodkas may have started to appear on liquor store shelves in the 1980s, but with the increasing popularity of martinis, and an increasing variety of flavors, the range of tasty and creative cocktails developed by “mixologists” around the country has created quite a stir. Sure, some Polish and Russian vodkas have been making flavored vodkas for years, but their buffalo grass flavor and slight green color can’t hold a swizzle stick to today’s flavors. Adding flavor without extra sweetness, the array of vodka flavors includes: lemon, lime, orange, raspberry, cranberry, strawberry, bilberry, currant, pineapple, cherry, apple, peach, melon, vanilla, chocolate, coconut, honey, and pepper. And, more flavors seem to be pouring into the market every day.