Looking at it, i realize i made essentially the same recipe, only with a handful of spinach added to it the other day with gnocci as the pasta when i had nothing else in my pantry.

It was a real ‘i aint got shit, what can i throw together’ night.

Vodkas used in a tomato cream sauce like that because of the lack of flavor, so it only serves to enhance and not impart a wine taste or additional sugars/caramel/etc.. a dry, very clean tasting white rum might be a substitute though.

Honestly, the purer the better. Ive had some white rums before that were basically indistinguishable from vodka.

Iirc alcohol will alter the flavor of some foods by dissolving some compounds into solution that are not necessarily water soluable, so some vodka added to a totatonsauce can enhance or bring out new flavors.