According to a Russian Vodka Museum tour guide, the Russians came by vodka through Italian visitors that brought aqua vitae, a wine spirit whose name meant “water of life” to the country in the 14th century, per Firebird Tours. The Russians tinkered with that until they created their own version using a twist on the Slovak word for water, voda. According to the Irish Times, “vodka” is the diminutive version meaning, “a little water.”

The tour guide told Firebird Tours that 18th century ruler Peter the Great didn’t like people getting too drunk on vodka. In an effort to teach people how to hold their drink when it was deemed they over-imbibed, the rule was they had to wear a 7-kilogram — roughly 15-pound — metal around their neck for a week. Hangovers don’t even last that long!

Another thing you’ll learn from St. Petersburg’s Russian Vodka Museum guide is that Mikhail Gorbachev, who led the country from 1985 to 1991, preferred tea to vodka and slapped a bunch of regulations on vodka, making it harder to get while inadvertently inspiring some good old DIY vodka distillation.

Since the good people at the Russian Vodka Museum realize all this vodka talking makes a person thirsty, all visits end with a vodka tasting. The vodka sampling also includes zakuski, or “little bites” of food like appetizers, which are the traditional Russian pairing for slightly chilled vodka shots, making our sugar and a lemon wedge pairings feel pretty lackluster.