'Definitely the First Few Times We Had Our Heave Bucket Close By'

Somehow Sarah Palin will get the blame for this.

Prepare your palate for carnivorous cocktails.

The Alaska Distillery in Wasilla just recently launched its Smoked Salmon Flavored Vodka, about a year after the Seattle-based Black Rock Spirits introduced a bacon-flavored vodka.

Both savory spirits were intended to complement Bloody Marys, but are finding wider uses among mixologists.

"I think there was some madness and some drunkenness involved, honestly," said Toby Foster, an Alaska Distillery partner and the one charged with coming up with new flavors with Alaska themes.

Foster's intent was to market a local vodka which would stand out among the numerous other bottles on the liquor store shelves.

"I was trying to think of something Alaskan. What's more Alaskan than smoked salmon? It was one of those epiphanies, I suppose," he said.

The idea turned out to be the easy part. Finding the right formula was a little more challenging.

Foster and Scotti MacDonald, another partner, said the current formula took 48 tries, and some of the first 47 attempts were downright disgusting.

"Definitely the first few times we had our heave bucket close by," MacDonald said. "It was pretty bad, and you know, greasy."

"But once we got it down and honed in on where the real secret was in making this, it was fun and games after that," she said.