July 10, 2011

Russkaya Ruletka

Russia

is this even Russian?

This is a review of Russkaya Ruletka vodka from Russia. I sampled it in Germany in 2011. It’s clear, 40% alcohol, and I felt utterly confused by it.

I found Russkaya Ruletka vodka (Русская Рулетка) in a huge grocery store in Munich. And by huge I mean huge. It took me a while to find my way through.

Anyway, I noticed this bottle among dozens of others, and I only picked it up out of curiosity. Was this some sort of “pseudo-Russian” German vodka? It seemed so at first, but on the label it said it was actually from Russia. I decided to take it home anyway.

say the word “Russian” one more time please

There isn’t much on the interwebs about this vodka. I found a Facebook page that hadn’t been updated in five years:

There was something in the ABOUT section that looked interesting, though:

Look what it says about Russia there on the left. Ahem… okay.

When I followed the link to the (very SEO-friendly) site russianvodka-premium.net, it looked like a bit of a disaster:

It said they were an import company based in Germany:

OSTEUROPA INNOVATIONS-LOGISTIK GmbH. From Oberdachstetten in Bavaria. Okay. And they were apparently working with a company called Vinogradov from Russia. Sadly, the vinogradov.ru domain was defunct:

In the end I really don’t know. Is this a Russian product as in: was it manufactured in Russia? Maybe. But do people in Russia actually drink this stuff? Highly doubtful.

weird bottles

The second thing I noticed was the weird bottle design. I mean, was this supposed to look like a gun or something? I get the idea that the bottle should have something to do with the theme of Russian Roulette. But if you’re going to make a bottle look like a gun then make it look like a gun, Not like a weirdly-shaped bottle.