Starogardzka

Poland

Starogardzka vodka

no more no more no more

This is a review of Starogardzka vodka from Poland. I sampled it in Germany in 2015. It’s clear, 37.5% alcohol, owned by United Beverages, and I didn’t like it very much.

As I was going through my vodka findings from Poland, this one somehow appeared before me: Starogardzka vodka. I don’t speak Polish, but the bottle design featured a man called Otto Winkelhausen. So I put on some Black Flag and opened my computer.

who is Otto Winkelhausen?

First of all, Starogardzka vodka didn’t seem to have its own website. I found no pages on social media either.

What I did find was a media article claiming that Starogardzka vodka was owned by Sobieski. So I went to Premium Distillers, the website of the Sobieski Group, but I found no mention of the Starogardzska brand. I did, however, find a company history that mentioned a distillery in Starogard. It also mentioned a certain Otto Winkelhausen who used to run it in the 19th century.

But it got a bit more complicated: Premium Distillers had apparently been bought by United Beverages. Alas, I found no mention of Starogardzka vodka on their website, either.

My search for Otto Winkelhausen led me to the website of a German family called Winkelhausen, where they traced back their family history. And there he was, Otto Winkelhausen, owner of a distillery in Gdansk in the 19th century. His descendents left Poland after the Communist takeover.

 

[online search from April 8th 2022]

Black Flag was still on. I had gone from “Rise Above” to “TV Party”, and I still didn’t know who the true owners of Starogardzka vodka were.

Starogardzka vodka is miserable

So anyway let’s get back to our review. I finished my bottle of Starogardzka vodka with a few friends. We didn’t like the vodka very much. Going through my notes I’m learning that it was hot, and by hot I mean it went down like lava. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through the whole bottle by myself. And the aftertaste? Yeah, it was there. It just wasn’t very good.

Black Flag are shredding through “No More” now. It feels like a good fit.

at least it’s cheap

There’s one good thing about Starogardzka vodka, though: it’s insanely affordable. I got this half liter bottle for the equivalent of 5€. That means 700ml would cost about 7 Euros. I didn’t really like the bottle design, though. It looked cheap.

All in all, Starogardzka vodka wasn’t so good. And I wonder what Otto Winkelhausen would think of it were he alive today.