Nestled in the back of your liquor cabinet there’s a dusty handle of vodka that’s so cheap and so harsh you won’t even mix it with cranberry juice. Your friend (acquaintance, really) gifted it to you at a house party you threw half a decade ago, and every time you see it, you feel you should really just toss the thing.

But what if I told you this vodka could actually get a little more palatable? Luckily, there’s a simple trick that bridges the gap between well-caliber swill and top-shelf booze. All you need to do is run that cheap vodka through a standard-issue Brita filter.

At least, that’s what the internet says. My question: Could this possibly work?

A little bit of knowledge about the vodka distillation process reveals that the idea isn’t totally crazy. In vodka distillation, a producer takes fermentable materials(anything from wheat to heirloom single-variety potatoes) and mills and cooks them into a pulp know as the mash. The mash gets a little yeast added to it, and it ferments until the sugars have converted to alcohol. Once it finishes with distillation, the vodka gets blended with water and then filtered, using activated charcoal to remove any impurities.