Whether you're a dirty martini man or a shot-shooter, there is one cardinal rule of vodka--only the best will do. Now, you may have your ideas of what constitutes the perfect vodka, but we wanted to look past the P. Diddy endorsements and designer bottles to clear- up some common myths and misperceptions about what actually goes into a good vodka.

In reality, only about one percent of all vodka brands are made exclusively from potatoes (Blue Ice and Chopin). In fact, many popular brands like Ciroc are made from grapes and all the rest are distilled from grains, including wheat, rye and corn.

While most U.S. vodkas are all distilled at one of three huge distilleries all located across the Midwest, it's what happens after the distillation process where vodka earns its top or bottom shelf status. It's at these post-distillation processing plants where vodka is diluted, filtered, flavored and bottled.

It's pretty much understood that you're not going to find freshly infused blackberry juice in your bottom-shelf vodka. But how can you be sure that the top-shelf bottle includes the real deal? The difference between natural and artificial flavors is a more technical rather than intuitive question. Sure, the average lemon vodka probably never had a lemon floating in it, but there are a few brands like Hangar One and Belvedere that actually do infuse fruit into their brew, giving it a much more authentic and fruity flavor.