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I am told vodka is the hip adult beverage of choice these days. I know this because as your faithful reporter of pop culture, it is my responsibility to keep abreast of these things. This also is why, at my advanced age, I spend time watching Snooki on the “Jersey Shore” while most folks my age are playing shuffleboard on cruise ships. It is a burden I shoulder without complaint. Frankly, the soaring popularity of high-end vodkas puzzles me.

Vodka is mostly water and alcohol, which is why it essentially has no taste. For a good part of its history, vodka was well-known in America for two reasons. One — it was the choice of alcoholics because in addition to being tasteless, it has no odor. For alcoholics, drinking vodka as opposed to bourbon saved them having to buy breath mints. Two — heavy use of vodka was the suspected reason for Russian belligerence during the Cold War. The theory goes that had Stalin drank chamomile tea instead of vodka, we would all have been spared a boatload of trouble. The main reason for his periodic purges was that the more people he got rid of, the more vodka there was for him. In Stalin’s defense, what else was there to do on a cold night in Moscow. He couldn’t cuddle with Anna Kournikova because she hadn’t been born yet.

The Russians used vodka as an excuse to invade Poland (although in fairness, it seems it is not difficult for countries to find an excuse to invade Poland). In this case, Russia was upset the Poles made cheaper vodka from potatoes and actually liked it. Russians will tolerate vodka being made from any grain except potatoes. It’s a Russian thing. Next time you invite Vladimir Putin to your home for dinner, hide your Polish vodka or you could wind up in the gulag.

Back in the day, we used vodka mainly as a mixer. We put vodka in a bloody mary or a screwdriver because it didn’t change the taste of the drink. Vodka was cheap. We didn’t like the Russians, so we weren’t about to make vodka our national drink. That fact created a problem for makers of vodka who were looking to increase product sales in the United States.

Some advertising genius figured out no American was going to pay big bucks for an odorless and tasteless liquor. The same genius figured out there was no prestige in drinking vodka because it was too cheap. Thus by raising the price of vodka, you could make it a status beverage. Unassuming vodka became as pretentious as Ed Snider (“Mr. Snider” to you). To explain the overnight transformation of vodka in basketball terms, it was like getting traded from the Sixers to the Lakers. Adding flavor was the next inevitable step in its evolution.

Vodka now comes in more flavors than Ben and Jerry’s. Anyone for Grey Goose Caramel Crunch? The advertising world had discovered an important concept; get enough pretentious, dumb people to buy your product and you can retire a wealthy man. Flavored vodka has been followed by flavored water, which is vodka without a kick.

Upscale restaurants began to provide lockers for their patron’s favorite vodka. Note — an upscale restaurant is any food establishment that depends on customers on expense accounts, so an overpriced meal may be written off at the taxpayers’ expense. With its own locker, vodka got a Barry Bonds complex. Vodka now keeps a hi-def TV and a pair of huge diamond stud earrings in its locker.

Vodka refuses to mingle with Johnny Walker or Jack Daniels and refuses to answer questions from media members. There also is a rumor that vodka is using performance enhancing drugs. How can you justify putting your vodka in a private locker? Is there no room in your home to keep a bottle of vodka? I resolved my own personal issue with this practice. I keep my vodka in a locker at the airport.

Ads began to hype exotic grains or distilling processes of high-end vodka. One such vodka, that sells for $40 a liter, uses organically-grown grain raised by a small group of Tibetan monks. It used to be enough that vodka was distilled through a charcoal filter. No longer. Larry King is putting out a vodka that is distilled through the lingerie of his latest girlfriend. Soon vodka will be enhanced with vitamins. Then at least we can have the world’s healthiest drunks. This will be the only vodka endorsed both by Dr. Oz and the Office of the Surgeon General.

The most-prized vodka must come with a pedigree. Chances are that your vodka boasts of having won a number awards for taste, even though it is essentially tasteless. One vodka boasts that it won the Noble Prize a year before Obama and was more deserving.

My wife claims that Grey Goose is the only one that does not give her a headache. I recently tested her hypothesis. One night after she had her favorite vodka drink, I made my patented move in bed. She still said, “Not tonight, honey, I have a headache.”