If we’ve ever laid anything of simmering anger at the door of Belvedere it’s that some people associate it and their frosted bottle with higher tier vodka (it’s not). So strap in folks because this will not be a kind review to Sobieski which would be better served clearing snow off of your skiing boots than sipped back at the lodge.
(Disclaimer we have no idea how skiing works, and if that’s a thing you do)
Speaking of anger, ho boy is there a lot of it below. Typically reviews are done in two passes – an initial writeup and scoring, and then a final mulling over while editing. Taking a sip of this now it’s no surprise the anger, and if you bought this with your money – you should be angry too.
What they Say: “The vodka in this bottle represents over 500 years of Polish distilling tradition, following traditional recipes kept since the 19th century at the Lancut mansion. Sobieski is made exclusively from the famous Dankowski Rye, harvested from the fields of Galicia. This unique grain has been recognized since early in the past century to produce vodka of superior quality and distinctive character their signature hereby confirms that this vodka indeed deserves the name of its patron, the great Polish King Jan III Sobieski.”
Taste: 2.0 – There is certainly a very present wheat/rye vodka flavoring here. However, they’ve decided to combo that speculatively ‘natural’ flavor with an artificial drain washing fluid.
Aftertaste: 2.0 – Here that rye continues, but you can also taste the charcoal used to filter this as well.
Burn/Smooth: 1.0 – This oddly enough goes down the mouth in much the same way a brick wall does. With considerable force, pain, and in small bits.
Aroma: 1.5 – Estate vodka? Is that because it’s a chemical used in building an estate? That actively burns the nostrils, and it’s very much a cleaner feeling – like floor cleaner though.
Honesty: 4.0 – The way they talk about recipes and the rye and the history makes you think one thing? How did you cock it up so bad? What part of our modern world techniques and strategies to shave a profit made you ruin this – or, was it always this bad? Either way, it’s called this because the recipes are in someone’s big house – and they used some exclusive rye – if ask us while that may be true, it sounds like some horseshit anyway.
Mixability: 4.5
Russian: 3.5 – It makes a passable Russian, and that rye style is very much there. However, it only hides that awfulness at first blush, because as the flavors mingle and stay there for a while it’s clearly off.
Vodka Tonic: 4.5 – While the combination of rye flavor and vodka with the tonic is really nice – there’s still that undertone which spoils it.
Screwdriver: 5.5 – Mercifully the orange juice is enough to hide the sort spots.
Value: 1.0 – If you had asked us to price this we would have given to wildly different answers. If just given the spirit in a clear unmarked container – $6 tops. The bottle though with it’s frosting, the mark of some special version, and the weight of the cap would put us at around 20-24 dollars. So I ask you this, why would anyone pay for a 16 dollar bottle?
Google Shop Average: $25
Website: http://sobieskivodka.com/us-en/
Reviewer Scores:
BuffaloJern: 1.0
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Metric Score: 16/70 |+| Metric Average: 2.28 |+| Reviewer Average: 1.0
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Final Thoughts: I have a confession. I don’t personally talk much about my Polish heritage because it’s a small part of me from my mother’s side (alongside Czech and German). This vodka makes me sad to be associated with it. It presents itself as the pride of a nation, and it deserves nothing. If I have one single hope it’s that this is truly just what is sent off as export/import and is actually just the first bad pour from the distilling process, with the good stuff kept squarely in the country.
