Last weekend was all about vodka: Polish vodka. I spent the weekend in Krakow, after which I ended up in Warsaw airport with a whole heaps of Polish złote and two hours to kill, so I stocked up on vodka in several flavours: bison grass, vanilla and cherry. Well, it would’ve been rude not to, wouldn’t it?
So last night I cracked open the cherry vodka whilst entertaining the genius idea of inventing a new dessert I had ambitiously titled: ‘Cherry Vodka Sabayon Espuma’. I had visions of a palely pink, fluffy, foamy, sweet and slightly almond-y concoction. What I got was a light-brown sludge that tasted like cherry-flavoured mayonnaise. Which just goes to show that even people who think about food 24/7 are perfectly capable of screwing things up. And that, when it comes to vodka, do as the Poles do: down it, frozen, from shot glasses.
But what else did I learn from my Polish adventure? Well, their drinking habits rival those of the Brits – which is no surprise, given the temperatures in which they have to survive. I tried hot beer with raspberry syrup, cinnamon and cloves, which sort of looked like a beer cappuccino but reminded me in taste of a cross between mulled wine and snakebite & black.
