Cooking question: what is the difference between regular tomato sauce and vodka tomato sauce? Does the vodka cut the acidity? The last time I drank vodka it was sneaked into a glass of orange juice I was drinking back in college, so I don't know what it tastes like.
That is an interesting question because my instinctive answer is that Vodka sauce is more "orange" and less "red."
Wikipedia says: "Vodka sauce is an American cuisine sauce made from a smooth tomato sauce, vodka, typical Italian herbs and heavy cream, which gives the sauce its distinctive orange coloration. It is a key ingredient in penne alla vodka.
The vodka's function is, ostensibly, to release flavors in the tomato that are normally inaccessible; using alcoholic beverages for this purpose is common in Italian cooking, although usually accomplished with wine. It is also an emulsifier, serving to keep the sauce stable, when normally the oil of the cream sauce would react with the acidic tomato sauce to separate from the water in both."
So - it allows you to put cream into your tomato sauce without it separating. (Hence the orange.)