ultimatevodka’s posterous

After leaving Renee's place, I waited at 6th Avenue, 23rd stop for the
F train, feeling quite sober despite having at least five vodkas in
addition to blue moon beer. Then again, I didn't have to work in an
office on Monday morning.
A group of young, pretty women were seated nearby, talking in a
language which sounded like Russian. The English speak of "branded
with the tongue" and Russian certainly is a distinctive language.

"Go tell them that they should have left a tip for the bartender, as
well as for the food," said a woman behind me. "Otherwise they'll get
a bad reputation."
The speaker, a small, dark haired woman with bright eyes was with two
tall, well built men. One of the men held up a bicycle.
The other man walked up to the group of women.
"What happened?" I asked the woman.
"They didn't leave a tip," she said. "It's just so that he could go
speak to them. He likes to speak to people."
Indeed, the man was speaking to the group of women in Russian.
The F train flooded the tunnel. When the women relocated to the end of
my carriage, the Russian man continued to talk to them, smiling and
laughing. At nearly midnight, the carriage was largely full and
slightly festive.....for anyone who didn't have to work tomorrow
morning.
"They seem to be getting on well," I commented to the woman.
She smiled.
She was a bartender who had just finished her shift at the bar where
the Russian women were drinking so no wonder she was bright eyed and
bushy tailed, probably ready to hit a club. She worked at - Barasco?
The name wasn't familiar. Her other companion with the bicycle, who
was also Russian, questioned me about my accent.
The Russian women departed at the stop before mine. While the train
doors were still open, the Russian man shouted hoarsely after them, "I
Love You!"
His subway pick-up lines didn't work.

Chelsea is a fine place to drink vodka and a fine place to visit.
It's a snapshot of a certain part of downtown Manhattan with all its freedoms: freedom to wander through the heart of the city's gallery scene and buy art (if you have the money), freedom to wander into a Stella McCartney store or into one of the ultra-expensive restaurants in the Meat Packing District (if you have the money). But most of the best Chelsea experiences really are free. It has a large gay population, so one of the real, cherished freedoms that are enlarged through the Chelsea community is the freedom to love whoever you want.
I was in Chelsea, accompanied by one of my favourite vodkas, Yuri Dolgurki, on a Sunday night for my friend Renee's dinner. When the Apocalypse comes, I would like to be standing next to, or maybe behind, Renee. Renee has lived everywhere (excepting the South Pole) working for NGO's.
Afterwards four of us were sitting in Renee's apartment faced by four very different vodkas - Three Olives (English and flavoured), Zyr (Russian), an Australian Eucalyptus vodka (unfortunately I can no longer remember its name) and Yuri Dolgoruki.
Yuri Dolgourki was first: in texture it's smooth with a mild edge, like the edges of a geometric shape. The scent is not unpleasant or too strong or pungent. Some flavoured vodkas smell like fruit bombs. The taste is a little bit ice, lemon, and it's good.
Australia has some decent vodkas. Would the eucalyptus vodka be one of them? The kangaroos wearing cork hats on the label wasn't encouraging for me.......and when we opened it, the scent of eucalyptus was like smelling salts, capable of rousing a dozing person. I like the smell of eucalyptus oil and leaves, but not from this vodka. The taste was iron tub heavy and flat. The three of us who were sampling it quickly put aside.
The Zyr is reasonably smooth and was more thickly textured than Yuri Dolgoruki.
The Three Olives had been doused with an overly sweet, pungent flavour which Matt, one of our tasters, accurately pegged as "strawberry", even though it was meant to taste of a fruit common in Greece and Turkey. And another point - what is wrong with the English? They are a fascinating people with a profound artistic and scientific heritage. But why do they call their vodkas names like "Vampyre" and "Black Death"?
I left without the Yuri Dolgurki, which had plainly decided that it preferred to live in Chelsea.
That pretty much sums up my experiences with YD. It was one of the vodkas I best remember from my visit to Russia. I would see it even in tourist shops: it was often in enormous bottles, its front engraved with the figure of a charging medieval knight (who must be Yuri Dolgurki himself, founder of Moscow), its back emblazoned with the wildly coloured, onion shaped domes of St Basil's cathedral in Red Square. I glimpsed it throughout Moscow and St Petersburg and finally decided to buy a bottle at St Petersburg's international airport from a duty free shop. The cashier, however, reminded me that the bottle would only be confiscated because it exceeded the volume restrictions for fluids carried onto planes. I fleetingly thought of emptying the vodka just so I keep the bottle with its bright, stained glass image of St Basil's on the back.

On Tuesday night, I crashed a Russian speakers & culture group at Phebes bar, East Village. Russians, Ukrainians, Russian expatriates, smart Russian speaking Americans and Baltic expats churned the room. It had been organised by a very charming and civic minded fan of the culture.
"Can you speak Russian?" Russian and Ukrainians asked me.
"No," I said cheerfully. I am learning....just very slowly.

I spoke to an Oleg: "I think the richest man in Russia right now is Oleg Depriska," I said.
Oleg: "who?"
Me: "The metals and aluminium tycoon".
"Oh, another oligarch".
I guess there's a million Olegs in Russian.

I was speaking with a lawyer about proof in mathematics when a jocular, open faced local who did speak Russian wandered up to us.
"I'm a lawyer," he said. "You know, I have horns and cloved feet."
"We're both lawyers," I said, also indicating my female companion.
" - And I have a tail tucked away," he continued.
"We're lawyers," I repeated, and he realised what I was saying.
I do know what it's like. He would have had some bad experiences in bars: people just don't understand you -
A Russian wandered over, than quickly ducked away at the realisation he was in the presence of three lawyers.

When I found myself discussing Michel Foucault's "History of Sexuality" with an Upper East side denizen who could speak Russian really well, I needed a drink.

For a bar hosting a Russian speakers forum, Phebes had positives and negatives. The positives were a relaxed ambiance, interesting patrons, good food. The big negative was the spirit selection, particularly the vodkas. I bought Ketel.

On seventh avenue Greenwich Village, not far from where I live, a giant bill-board advertisement for ketel announces "Gentlemen, this is vodka". Ketel is in fact a well regarded Dutch vodka, considered to be ultra-premium. But labels...... I don't know. For me, there's a scratchy, slightly smoky under-burn taste to it. Something just isn't quite there....It's not that smooth. Now people I know and respect drink it. So I can say it will always be safe to drink Ketel.

Zubrowka happens to be one of the better vodkas to have with a mixer. Zubrowka, apple juice and ice actually works.
Here is another picture of Zubrowka, taken by Costa Karagounis, writer, photographer and Telemann fan, among other qualifications.

Why call a bar in New York "The KGB bar"?
I haven't received a satisfactory answer to this question, but I can report that there is a good "KGB bar" and a "bad KGB bar". The "good KGB bar" hosts literary readings every night of the week, and is an upstanding and highly regarded pillar of the New York literary community and should be thanked. Regrettably the "bad KGB bar" exists in the same physical dimension as its good self, and was on show on the Friday night that I visited.

I had turned up at the bar with a classical pianist looking for a good vodka. We had completed the very (not) arduous journey from the Meatpacking district to the East Village on foot for this bar. The initial evidence was not good: an enormous Soviet flag crouched above the bar like a gargoyle and it looked ominous, or perhaps it was the bold, blood stain red of the fabric. There's a reason that red is associated with "danger" in the natural world. The bartender was surly and rude and even the patrons looked a bit flat. To add insult to injury was the vodka selection. There was the usual suspects you find on at least three continents, which is a wall of uninspiring Absolut, Smirniff, Stoli and others. These are the cheap mixers: on their own, they taste uniformly bad, although it depends upon the brand. For example, you can buy expensive Stoli which is housed in a wonderfully sleek and aerodynamic bottle and tastes like the vodka equivalent of good champagne. So there's even good and bad Stoli.

The bartender naturally had no idea what vodkas the House had, but the bar did have Zubrowka vodka. At home or abroad, you'll usually encounter three Polish vodkas, namely Zubrowka or "Bison grass", Belvedere and Wyborowa. Zubrowka has a bison emblazoned on its front, and a "blade" or stem of the "bison grass" in the bottle. It's not a flavoured vodka, rather a vodka flavoured with a sliver of the grass. And it's a very tasty, accessible vodka with only a mild bite to it. My friend nursed her Zubrowka after confessing that she had Russian and Polish heritage and was just starting to enjoy it when a man approached: "Let me buy you ladies a drink. You don't have to talk to me, I'll just buy you a drink. Really," he added, when we looked at him, skeptical, "you don't have to talk to me, I'll just buy you a drink."

I said no, because this is always a disingenuous line. Who has money to spend on buying drinks for members of the opposite or same sex who won't talk to you? Clearly we should have asked for 1992 Krug. My friend, however, was much more polite than me. While I glared at a spot on the bar, trying not to influence my decision, she struggled with all the layers of politeness of her Connecticut heritage, plus all the patience required in performing scales and arpeggios on the piano over a very long time. She said "no", but it was some time before he left us.

I visited Moscow in September 2007. First impressions were not encouraging.

The city was drenched in grey and seemed to sprawl like the slouching beast made famous in W.B.Yeats poetry, with a rain propelled by a vicious wind. I was staying in an enormous hotel in Izmaylovsky Park, an outer suburb. The horizon was dominated by tenement apartment blocks. At ground level, in a somewhat bleak looking landscape pummeled by elements, you could visit Moscow's largest flea market (where I purchased the spring/ autumn coat that undoubtably saved me from pneumonia) and a neighbouring park. The location of the hotel, apparently the largest in Europe, was bizarre. And no matter its size, I still managed to loose sight of the hotel, and then my bearings, in the flea market. Enormous Russian buildings have a disturbing habit of disappearing from the landscape (for example St Isaac's in St Petersburg).

I tried to see the city centre on my first full day in Moscow. The locals knew better and the avenues and streets around Arbat metro station were deserted. The interior of Arbat metro station, particularly on the platform, is stunning (Moscow probably has the most beautiful Metro system on the planet). I was back in the city centre the following night, and in a bar I bought my first ever vodka shot. I didn't recognise any of the vodkas on the drinks list so chose "Putinka" because of the name association. Years later I learned that the name association with Vladimir Putin is real, although not sanctioned by the current prime minister.

The vodka arrived in a shot glass taller and larger than you find in the West, and I was surprised by its scent, taste and the texture. It was smooth and slid easily, and hotly, down the throat. There was an edge, but not a harsh one. The taste wasn't bitter or acrid. It didn't claw up your throat. The taste was quite pleasant, although I can no longer describe it. I think it had spices and even a pepper coating but maybe I'm confusing the memory with the chilli pepper vodka on the overnight train to St Petersburg.

Anyone who says that all vodkas taste alike, smell alike or have similar textures is just ignorant, although ultimately there's only the "good or bad vodka test". A good vodka goes down, a bad vodka feels like it's coming up your throat.

Putinka is an accessible vodka to the palate of non-vodka drinkers. I know you can buy it in London, but haven't seen it yet in Sydney and not sure about New York. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

I've attached a shot of medos vodka, one of the most accessible and delicious honey vodkas around. Apparently "medos" also means honey in Hungarian. I've been told it's undergone a name change - you can now find it under "Krupnik".

Medos vodka

Who first brewed vodka?

The Russians? The Polish?

The answer matters, but not so much as the people who currently drink it. This is a blog about vodka through the lens of the people  - Russians, Poles, Swedes, French, Americans and others - who drink it, and about people through the lens of vodka.