fail on so many levels

[40%, sampled in Azerbaijan]

On October 8th 2018, I was getting ready to leave Azerbaijan. This was when I realized that I wanted to try more vodka brands from there. So I went to a store near the border and bought a few bottles. They were all very affordable, so it didn’t really matter.

This one was called Belly Parus.

the southern route

When I asked the store clerk where this vodka was from, he told me that it was from Akhsu, just like all the other vodka brands from Azerbaijan. I had never been to Akshu, but my way almost led me past there, back when I decided to take the northern route along the mountains near Shamakhi.

hail to the photoshop

One thing that struck me as odd about Belly Parus: it was almost twice as expensive as Napoléon, Samovar, and Stolichniy, which I had bought a while earlier in Sheki. This 500ml bottle cost 8 Manat for 500ml, which put it at around 6€ for 700ml. Still a ten, though.

The label design looked as though it had been photoshopped and printed it out on an inkjet printer from the 1990s. I didn’t like it. I liked the general shape of the bottle, but it had a cork cap, so there was that. Not great.

fire in the bottleneck

The pouring sound was awesome (which is no surprise given the shape of the bottleneck). There was almost no smell, which seemed like a good thing. The taste was weird, though. Belly Parus was very very fiery, and there was a note of bitterness to it. I didn’t like it.

The aftertaste was spicy as well, but there was a faint aroma that kind of made up for it a little bit. I’m still not sure what that aroma was, though.

Overall, Belly Parus vodka isn’t very good. And it’s certainly not as good as some of the other vodka brands that were also supposedly also from Akhsu in Azerbaijan.