We don’t care much for important footnotes – so this is basically an upgraded Stoli. Now we have reviewed Stoli before and the results – well they weren’t good. This is – well it is better, but at what cost?
It turns out – quite A LOT of cost, and despite our thrifty savings this is marketed as some near Fifty dollar spirit and barely deserves to be in the same sentence as them. Sure there is as you’ll see a bright spot on this turdball, but make no mistake – this is an upgrade to Stoli – not an ‘Elite’ vodka.
What they Say: “From the House of Stoli”
Taste: 3.5 – Again it’s reminiscent of Stoli proper – with it somehow failing to be a creamy vodka, a clean vodka, and a shite vodka but also being all three at once.
Aftertaste: 4.0 – The end starts with a more charcoal-like flavor, and while that wanes in a not quite terrible way there are some waves of creaminess here.
Burn/Smooth: 3.5 – It is not singing your nose hair off kinda burn, but a clean neat drinker it ain’t.
Aroma: 4.0 – Like the original, there certainly is a bit of a creamy smell here, but while subtler, that awful floor cleaner smell is also here. Overall it’s about par for vodkas, but not a good start to something meant to be Elite.
Honesty: 2.5 – They don’t have verbose literature to stand behind, but they do have that name, and the profile/look to appear to stand out in a club as a premium product – which it’s not, so far as trying to hide a bit it’s from Stoli. that alone is dishonest and therefore poor scoring.
Mixability: 6.0
White Russian: 7.5 – It’s actually pretty great here, all good – none of the bad. It doesn’t elevate the drink, but we’d be lying to not say it’s a damn fine Russian.
Screwdriver: 6.0 – Given the creamy nature one would expect horror here, but no it actually adds something the Screwdriver w/o disappearing entirely, but not showcasing the weak points.
Tonic: 4.5 – While it’s a bit different, it’s not super enjoyable, and it seems the aspects of the vodka do actually get in the way here.
Value: 2.0 – We got this on HELLA clearance, (around 20 bucks) and boy is we glad to have done so. Partly because 44 dollars is a quite frankly ridiculous amount of money to spend on this. At our 20 dollar price, it’s a fine Russian maker, and we don’t regret having that in the lounge. However, it’s not a neat or a martini kinda gal – and ultimately we have to judge based on the actual average price not an over half off deal.
Google Shop Average: $44
Website: https://stoli.com/
Reviewer Scores:
BuffaloJern: 4.0
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Metric Score: 25.5/70 |+| Metric Average: 3.64 |+| Reviewer Average: 4.0
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Final Thoughts: We’ll give them this much – compared to regular Stoli – this is certainly ‘Elite’. However compared to many, many other vodka‘s nah bub. This is what you kind of expect if you saw the whole bottle – a slightly better Stoli. Overall our biggest point of kudos is that since it’s not sold well we got it for half off, and our Kamora/Cream will be put to some use.
