One of the first things I did in college, after I turned 21, was run an insanely nerdy Design of Experiment with my engineering friends tasting vodka. We went out and purchased a whole host, ranging from Svedka to Grey Goose to Zyr, and several others. After imbibing more than we should, we tallied up the numbers and analyzed our findings. The surprise, a Polish vodka called Sobieski Vodka was one of our favorite values in the group.
Sobieski Vodka
Made from 100% Rye, Sobieski is named for a Polish king, and is connected to Marie Brizard.
Sight: Clear
Smell: A bit of heat and spice leads off the nose. Touches of ethanol and like vanillin work around the edges. The nose is remarkably clean and subtle, with just the slightest hint of wet rock.
Sip: Sobieski starts of clean and smooth with hints of the spicy character of rye and touches vanillin. The flavor gradually becomes more ethanol with a touch of sweetness before reducing to a clean, if slightly hot alcohol flavor.
Savor: The ending is again, slightly boozy with just a little bitter-spicy rye component.
Sobieski is undoubtedly a rye vodka, and has the hallmark flits of spiciness around the edges. The thing about Sobieski is it’s fairly mild in it’s flavor, not being so obtrusive that you’d notice it. That is, unless you’re trying to notice it. When observed up close, there is a touch of heat and lacks of flavor that leaves it less than pleasant to enjoy on it’s own. For the price, this makes it one of our favorite choices to use for infusions and cocktails.
In Cocktails
Sobieski works delightfully in most cocktails, hiding in plain sight. It does especially well hiding in cocktails with some degree of acidity, using the light spice and clean character to blend in. The exception to this amongst cleaner flavor profiles, such as Martinis and Vespers, where it does well, but not as well as softer wheat offerings.
It also works particularly well in infusions, where I’ve used it to make fruit flavored vodkas and recently to make our Krupnik for Dyngus day.
Sobieski Vodka Overall
At $17 for a handle (1.75L) and an awful bluetooth speaker, Sobieski Vodka remains as stellar value with or without the trinkets. What it does well is provide a neutral, inoffensive, relatively smooth base to craft from. While it’s no over ice sipper, there’s nothing here to detract from other ingredients. Based on this, Sobieski is a top candidate to make our Recommended Bottles for Beginning a Home Bar list, and deserves consideration on your shelf.