beautiful to drink

beautiful to see, that's what the belvedere in belvedere vodka means.
and i can tell you its pretty beautiful to drink too and me thinks, i had one too many at the launch at the frangipani wednesday night.
the makers, from the house of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, claim it as a luxury vodka coming from a single-rye source. as one very well knows, vodka or little water, is a colourless spirit distilled from any source.
belvedere is distilled - four times - from dankowskie gold rye, planted in the small town of zyrardów in the west of warsaw, poland.
unlike the other vodkas in the market, the pure belvedere is pretty smooth, slippery even. not the usual fire-water burning the back of the throat as one knocks it back from a shot glass. the first shout came with a couple of ice cubes and a wedge of lime. nice.
the real taste is subtly sweet with a hint of pepper. crisp and clean. and so smooth. so beautiful to drink.
the bottle, clear with some frosted areas filligreed with white tree branches have a window that reveals the belvedere - a handsome building that is home to the polish president. and as you will know by now, belvedere means beautiful to see.
belvedere, first introduced in the united states in 1996 and some five years later in the united kingdom, made its way to southeast asia in 2003 in singapore. why i am even telling you this?
well, belvedere's official appearance in kuala lumpur was by way of a party at frangipani wednesday july 20. the good folks at local distributors riche monde also launched two other belvedere variants - the belvedere cytrus and belvedere pomarancza the same night.
the boys and girls down south only had the pleasure of that hours ago, thursday july 21.
also, most importantly, the belvedere vodka meisters are not calling these variants as flavoured vodkas but macerated vodkas, you know, steeping the peels of dried fruits in alcohol to get the aromatic oils for infusion into the little water.
impressed? let's just say they had the help of a french perfumier from the cognac region for that process. and the results are extremely impressive. and it took them some time to get the recipes right, as can be seen from the formulation numbers. the cytrus is listed as formula Q11 while the pomarancza is listed as P42.
just know that they started the formula numbers from A.
the cytrus is crisp with its lime-lemon combination. the lime comes out for the first wave before the lemon comes true. apparently the citrus infusion turns the vodka cloudy when ice cubes are swirled in - causing a chemical reaction with the aromatic oils.
didn't see it happen though.
the killer luxury vodka must be the belvedere pomarancza. this vodka is macerated with spanish mandarins, spanish limes, moroccan oranges and moroccan orange blossoms. the vodka explodes in your mouth and after a while, different notes rule your tongue as the spirit spreads it way through the system. what a blast!
and all through the night, as the party set made its way past the ice queens and waiters to try the vodkas, all i could say was more and more, and na zdrowie or cheers in polish.
and me thinks the belvedere will be a firm favourite at the uptown party spots for its bottle, the contents and the pricey price tag that comes with it.
having said that, have some other vodkas to taste in coming weeks and to make up for lost time. was away travelling on spiritual paths outside malaysia.