Ular

Kyrgyzstan

Ular vodka

nothing special

This is a review of Ular vodka from Kyrgyzstan. I sampled it in Kyrgyzstan in 2014. It’s clear, 40% alcohol, produced by Ayu, and I thought it was mediocre.

Ular vodka. Another one from Kyrgyzstan, another one from Ayu. This was the second bottle that graced our table during the “night of many drinks” in Jeti Oguz.

another copycat

It turned out to be the same story as with many other of the Ayu brands: there was no information about Ular vodka online, and none in the Ayu informational brochure. I figured it had probably been discontinued.

There was, however, the Kaktus article that explained how several Ayu brands had been ripping off other companies’ designs. And Ular vodka was one of them.

[edited on April 4th 2022]

Maybe Ayu had ended up discontinuing all their knockoff brands after all?

more from the drunken night

Back to the drinking night in Jeti Oguz: it was dark outside, the horses were coming home from the pasture, and we had just finished dinner and a very good bottle of Kyrgyz Aragy. What were we going to do now? Go to our rooms and call it a night? Or stay here, in the warmth of the restaurant, and see what other Kyrgyz vodka brands we could try? Obviously, we opted for the latter.

It turned into a long night. Our party of three was joined by an older Kyrgyz gentleman with a friendly smile and an unbelievable ability to consume alcohol. Many things seem obscure to me now. How long did I play with those two dogs outside of the restaurant? Why did I let them run away with my baseball cap, and why did they find it necessary to tear it apart?

Ular vodka is a fake little bird

But I was going to talk about Ular vodka here, right? Now that I am going through my notes from the night (luckily I didn’t lose them), I can tell you that it tasted okay. Not great, not refined, but okay.  And the aftertaste was boring. It did the job of getting us drunk, but there didn’t seem to be anything special about it.

So I guess it’s a good thing that this stuff is cheap even for Kyrgyz standards: I paid 110 Som for 500ml (not even 3€/700ml). It comes in a standard bottle with a bird on it. And while I liked the design as such, the print quality wasn’t so good. Also, it was a goddamn knockoff.

Drunken me liked the bird. But it was a fake bird.