screwed by Turkey’s tax laws

This is a review of Binboa vodka from Turkey. I sampled it in Turkey in 2019. It’s clear, 37.5% alcohol, and it was alrightish.

I bought this one in a shop in Trabzon in the fall of 2019. I was there on The Longest Way, and Trabzon was my first experience in a big Turkish city. It was also the first time I went to a büfe, a roadside kiosk with a liquor license, in order to buy some vodka.

You see, alcohol is available in Turkey, yes. But it’s heavily regulated. You can’t just get it anywhere and at any time you want. It’s also heavily taxed, making it expensive, especially given Turkey’s battered economy. There’s a Wikipedia article on Turkish alcohol laws that gives a good overview (even though it needs a bit of updating).

So anyway, here it is – a review of Binboa Vodka from Turkey!

my “first” Turkish vodka

I was excited to have some real Turkish vodka. I mean, I had tried Istanblue vodka before (and loved it), but that had been when I was still back in Germany. This time, I was in Turkey. So I went to the büfe, picked out my bottle of Binboa, stood in line, and paid for it. It set me back 85 Turkish Lira for 370ml, which at that time corresponded to about 13,60€. This meant that 700ml would have cost a whopping 25,7€ (5/10).

By the way, today those 85TL would be a bit more than 2€.

Tayyip’s economy, y’all.

Diageo is everywhere

When I looked up the ownership of Binboa, I landed on the Mey Diageo website. Apparently Mey Icki was a Turkish company that had become a subsidiary of Diageo:

They also produced Istanblue and Bazooka, a vodka that I was going to test later.

reddish hue

So anyway, about our bottle of Binboa here. The bottle design looked okay, nothing special. Clear glass with a red hue towards the bottom. A rather large screw cap. Binboa seemed like a vodka that wanted to be consumed, not celebrated. I’d give the bottle design a neutral 5/10.

When I opened the bottle, there was almost no smell at first. A good sign.

I poured a shot at room temperature. The taste was sweetish. I thought that there was even a hint of lemonade in it, maybe Sprite 0r something. This was likely due to sugar.

sugarrrrr

Vodka manufacturers often like to add sugar to the final product in order to mask its imperfections. In the case of a vodka that is decidedly sweet, I will pay extra attention to its smell. If it has a strong smell, then something is off. For Binboa this wasn’t the case.

It did, however, fight a little bit on the way down. Meaning it was a bit too spicy for my taste. I’d give it a generous 8/10 on taste.

The aftertaste wasn’t so bad, either. It did what it was supposed to do – it warmed my stomach. This might sound silly, but I don’t like it when I’ve had a vodka shot and it just sits there doing nothing. I want it to make me feel a bit warm.

There was a bit of a fresh aroma to the aftertaste. Nothing too interesting, but also nothing annoying. A 7/10 in the aftertaste department.

overpriced workhorse

Overall it seems as though writing a review of Binboa vodka is a bit difficult because of Turkey’s alcohol taxes. In most other countries, Binboa would probably be less than half the price, which would make it a solid vodka. Nothing fancy, but nothing bad either.

In Turkey, though, it comes with a price tag that puts it in a league with much better vodka brands abroad.

This way, it can only be an overall 6.25. Sorry.