h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm quite partial to the odd drop of vodka and especially enjoy vodka flavoured with chillies. Both the alcohol and chilli burn on the way down! Just recently, I found out about a couple of strange vodka flavours available - gold and grass. Gold vodka contains small pieces of gold leaf which float around in the bottle sort of like a tourist snow bubble scene. Grass vodka is flavoured with, you guessed it, grass, and is a pale green colour.

Has anyone tasted these? Are they worth chasing up?

I think if I could get my hands of a bottle of this gold leaf vodka stuff I'd most likely put it on my coffee table as a conversation piece. I do think though, that if someone then proceded to send me a second bottle of it, I'd give it a good go. If anyone comes along with info on where to find these fine beverages, I'd be most content to know. I can understand the grass, as I'm an avid chewer of that wonderful stuff. Gold flecks though, that makes me wonder. I guess after a bottle of that, it's really what's on the inside of a person that counts.

I found a place that sells the grass vodka, if you're interested:

http://www.polishvodka.euro-index.com.pl/wisent-vodka.htm

I've never tried the gold or the grass, but Absolut has come out with a new mandarin flavored vodka that I'm dying to try.

A couple of the clubs in my home city sell a drink called GOLDSTRIKE which has gold leaf in it. It is very strong cinamon flavour though, not a vodka, and it burns like b*****y on the way down!

I would warn against taking an over fondness of gold flake containing alcohols. I read an article in the odd news section some time back about a gentleman that became overly fond of a drink called Goldschlager, a clear cinnamon schnapps with gold flakes sold in the states. Apparently he consumed approximately a pint or so of the stuff almost daily and ended up with gold poisoning. Yes gold is a metal and should not be taken internaly, small amounts are mostly harmless though.
I see it this way the man had several problems per sey, he drank too much to start with, and at the going rate of the stuff he must have been insane and rich to purchase that much.

In a short addition to your question regarding flavoured Vodka I would just like to point out that having been in Russia on and off for the past 2 years it has come to my attention that everything that can be put into vodka has been put into vodka. They are all worth following up if you have the odd stomach pump available. I have not heard of "Grass" vodka but in Russia they often call herbs grass and I am not aware of any herb that has not found its way into a vodka bottle. If you have the strong desire to truely sample the vodka available to you in this life I strongly recommend a vodka tasting roadtrip to moscow (having secured the appropriate health insurance of course). If you are truely of an adventurous spirit, I would never reccommend, but would call to your attention Russian homemade Sammagon. This is similar to a type of neuclear fuel.

Whilst this will be of little interest to vodka coniseurs (I have a feeling that a spell-checker may be useful at this point, but sorry, I am not sufficiently savvy with technology to look one up from here),
there is a type of fizzy drink in Russia allegedly made from grass. It's called 'tarhoon' and is certainly very green with convincingly grass-like promo pictures, though I suspect that the actual grass content in the mass-produced version is similar to that of oranges commonly found in Fanta.

About Polish vodkas: I know them very well - I live in Poland
Grass vodka (Zubrowka, sorry, but I'm not typing it with our national characters - nobody would know how to pronunciate it, hehehe) is excellent, usually it comes with apple juice (50/50) and a liitle of ice. Vodka with gold flakes (called from German GoldWasser - Gold Water) seems to be much stronger than a water... If you'll ever have an opportunity to drink it, DO IT!!! But remember, it must be MUST BE very well frozen. You can also find a fine vodka from Gdansk (Srebrnik Gdanski), that comes with silver flakes. Both of them (gold and silver one) are a little bit sweet, but this makes them really yummy.

Sorry for my horrible English, but it's not my native language (but I'm doing my best).

From Poland With Love

Paranoid Android
Wojtek

Interesting!!!

Zubrowka with apple juice?

I just happen to have a bottle of Zubrowka, so I'll give it a try!!

Do you know any other good mixes??

I used to make my own lemon vodka and wisnowka, but it is becoming very difficult to get Polish spirit in the UK especially "rektyfikowany"!!

And there's no chance of Zlota Woda here!! I've just got my empty bottle as a souvenir!!

PROST!!

fruit tea bags are a good way to flavour vodka, you should use quite a few in a bottle and leave them there a while, but the result is tasty