vodblog | Russian Empire Vodka

Right. Let's do this thing.
It's looking at me. But time is against me.
The little swine is warming up.
Deep breath.

Phew. Well. That. That is not good.

However, it does tell me one thing..

What that is exactly I'll leave for the moment and explain a bit more about what on earth I'm going on here. This is the Vodblog and I'm reviewing vodka. I like vodka. I was teetotal and had yucked at wine, blehed at beer and rolled cider around in my mouth with a facial expression that suggested that I was practising for a gurning competition.

Then some damn fool offered me a vodka and orange juice. Neither, to be frank, would have been of any sort of quality. But given that up to that point in my life alcohol, in the myriad forms I had encountered had largely been about as palatable as a murky puddle, this was something that was in with a chance.

I'd been drinking orange juice (you have to drink something) on the rare occasions that I'd ventured into pubs; I'd never really seen the point of alcohol to be frank. But now, this was different.The joys of decent orange juice are a recent addition to my life, ; so at the time drinking orange juice for me was largely about a big fat sugar kick and a nice fruity taste. I was a picky bugger (and still am) and orange juice was one of the few things I actually did drink. No tea, no coffee, nothing fizzy. I was a bundle of beverage joy to be sure.

But this OJ; this had been something else; the orange juice tasted, okay, different - there was something there, but then there was… hang on, it’s warming, gotta finish the glass.

Urrrggghh. Aftertones of paint thinner. Ugh!

Ahem.

Yes, right, after that there had been a warm feeling going down, and a warm feeling rounds about me. I’d discovered the joys of minor intoxication.

Years pass and many other discoveries like schnapps and mead, but vodka remains my booze of choice.

The Review - Russian Empire Vodka

This one, however, I can’t see as being one of anyone’schoice if they have any choice at all.
“Start on a good one.” my ever sensible wife told me. “No no, I’ve discovered this bottle of rank meths like vodka, I’ll start with that.” I told her.

And so, I present to you; a review of Russian Empire Vodka. Triple distilled. And produced in, well, no idea, somewhere in the EU. The label doesn’t actually tell me and web searches don’t bring any confessions immediately to the fore. I don’t think that there is actually a country that wants to claim responsibility for this travesty, this crime against alcohol

I was, I must say, actually expecting that first drink to be much, much worse (The chilled shot). I’d tried a sip before and it was bad. Really bad. But that was room temperature. As this is a review, and in order to gauge each vodka I’ll be reviewing here accurately, I am reviewing three shots from each. One at room temperature (so NOT looking forward to that) one chilled in a fridge and one fresh from the deep freeze.

Some vodkas stand up on their own, this is rare; a bit of chill in a vodka is usually a good thing; helps ease the bite of the alcohol when it goes down, though it also dulls the taste a little I find. But when it’s rough as all hell like this stuff, it’s got to be chilled, it makes it a bit more bearable.

Well; next. Room temperature; water on standby…

Yuk. Worse. Now, amazingly, that stuff didn’t actually burn. I’m pretty amazed, but I suspect it’s because my throat’s nerve cells had already killed themselves after the taste from the chilled shot glass. But there’s no way I’m going to finish that stuff.

Flavour? Well, hints of petrol. I’m only glad I have a bit of a cold so this stuff isn’t smelling so bad.
Sits in your belly, pretty bad though. I can feel it in there and it’s like an icy hand in my stomach rather than that nice warm feeling you get from a good clear crisp vodka.

Plenty of water after this one, I can tell you.

Right. Frozen… feck. Even worse. The smell is way stronger. More water needed. This, this stuff is BAD.

So, anyway, I bought this from a little Nisa type corner shop where the owner assured me “it tasted good” and for the bargain price of 12 quid it was mine. I pretty much knew that there was no way in hell this stuff could be any good for that price. I’m never betraying my local off-license again!

I’m finding it hard to think of any other vodka that’s been worse that this stuff. But, let’s keep it positive; it’s not made me upchuck and that so far I’m going to consider a kind of achievement, either for my stomach’s constitution or the so-called quality of this vodka.

The scores

Quality: 2/10 - It didn’t make me throw up immediately, but I think I want to now it has gone down

Taste: 1/10 - Petrol is not the perfume of choice for alcohol and frankly that’s what it smells like.

Presentation: 3/10 - The bottle actually has some semblance of a decent label on it.
Best temperature: Chilled. But this stuff is best served straight down the sink, you don’t want to try this; trust me.

Alcohol - 37.5% by volume

Cost - £12 - I've only seen this available in one shop and it was the last bottle. You should all be thankful for this.

Conclusion: Overall; this is probably the worse vodka I’ve drunk for a long long time, other more horrible drinks I’ve probably had and my brain has mercifully scrubbed them from the record, but this one is going to stay with me for a while. When you set a bottom bar, make sure it’s low and this one is subterranean.