A barbican is basically a tower/fort situated on a gateway over say a bridge or wall entrance. Particularly this one is referring to the Warsaw Barbican. Now if you are wondering why we are starting this review talking about some structure and what it has to do with vodka – it’s a good question. Because we don’t know either *makes side glance at brand*
So let’s move onto the contents, and the contents are a rye field – which we guess makes sense because naming yourself after a famous farm isn’t a thing really. Honestly there are some faults here, most notably in the mixilogy department, but the real sadness is that if this was maybe just distilled a bit more, or filtered just enough – it could have been amazing. Just the removal of that burn and that same pricing and this would become a martini powerhouse of rye flavor – but alas.
What they Say: “Vodka has been part of Poland since the middle ages, produced across the nation according to local custom. The stone barbican outside of Warsaw was erected in 1540 as part of a complex series of fortifications to protect the people and traditions of the city.
Rye, unique in its expression is renowned for lending subtle hints of spice and pepper. Barbican, utilizing 100% single grain rye, is extraordinarily clean, delightfully dry and beautifully balanced. A rock-solid testament to Polish tradition.”
Taste: 6.5 – You start with a bit of a clean sweetness and that peppery flavor like the aroma. It’s over rather quickly though as the aftertaste and the rye take hold.
Aftertaste: 7.0 – Oh boy that’s a fuckton of rye flavor. It mixes with that pepper flavor once again as well as some burning. Rye however is why you are here, and in terms of making a fairly clean and very dry vodka – the rye does it’s job in spades. You almost wonder aloud about aging this.
Burn/Smooth: 6.0 – It mingles with the rye, but there’s no denying the burn here. It’s weirdly smooth for how it goes down despite that, but you can’t ignore the tingle on your lips and then all the way down.
Aroma: 7.0 – It does indeed smell very clean and a bit peppery true to their words. If you dig close enough you can get some ethanol, but really you’d be huffing vodka at that stage. It otherwise just smells like a nice clean sharp vodka.
Honesty: 7.5 – There’s no lies. The design isn’t complex or terribly unique, but there’s no faults. Add that to the actually honest tasting notes and they do rather well here.
Mixability: 5.5
W/ Rocks: 5.0 – It’s colder, but not much better. So overall just passing marks.
Vodka Tonic: 5.5 – That’s again an okay vodka tonic. You get some of that rye flavor, but to be frank, not as much as you would like. There might be a good soda centric cocktail with this that tonic is overpowering, but it’s not this.
White Russian: 6.0 – It’s good but not far off from bog-standard. It seems sadly the promise of that rye isn’t showing itself.
Value: 5.5 – We come to an impasse here – sadly that nice rye flavor didn’t translate well when no longer neat. While sure there might be an application for this that can work wonders, but given the burn it’s not exactly a martini vodka either. However 15 isn’t half bad at all – it’s almost cheap.
Google Shop Average: $15
Website: (once again no dice on a site we can find)
Reviewer Scores:
BuffaloJern: 6.0
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Metric Score: 45/70 |+| Metric Average: 6.43 |+| Reviewer Average: 6.0
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Final Thoughts: It was tempting to give this a review score of a blanket 5 for being just not useful with mixed drinks nor being a smooth sipper – and therefore an oddity in a good bar. However it’d be wrong to deny the flavor going on here, and the outright honesty of their literature being true to form. That being said – it’s never going to be bought again by us, and as for you all – well it’s not exactly recommended either.
