Pash-ion for Vodka #16 - Absolut San Francisco/Grapevine

In 2011, the Absolut City Flavours range moved from Brooklyn, on America’s East Coast, to “the City by the Bay” on the Pacific Coast, San Francisco. The flavours of choice in this version were grape, dragon fruit and papaya. The flavours were chosen to reflect Northern California’s Wine Country and the city’s Asian and Latin cultures. Towards the end of the year of its release, it was re-branded as Absolut Grapevine.

The Taste

1) Room temperature 
Nose: Fruity, with some bitter tannin-like notes and hints of berries and grapes. Taste: Quite smooth, but also quite sweet, the main flavour was a slightly artificial one of grapes; there was nothing fresh about it, which is a shame and results in the vodka tasting a bit cheap.

2) From the freezer
Ice-cold, this had a fresh, fruity, luscious nose, with lots of grape and papaya (a good start, there). Despite the promising nose, the taste was a bit of a let-down, with the white grape dominating and the papaya ending up being rather obscured. Like the spirit at room temperature, this was also quite artificial and a bit rough at the end; again, quite a disappointment.

3) Martini
Dry and bitter, with a dash of richer fruitiness, this was quite good and easily my favourite way to the drink this vodka; I’d definitely order it again.

4) Vodka Tonic
Not bad. Although a touch on the bitter side, with hints of tannins from the grapes, this also had a sweet fruitiness to it. Inoffensive.

Absolut San Francisco (same as Grapevine) is available for around £42 for 75cl from The Whisky Exchange.

Pash-ion for Vodka #12 - Absolut Orient Apple

Since its global release in 1979 (Absolut Vodka was actually founded in 1879) Absolut Vodka have already released over a dozen flavour variants of their original product. As part of this expansion, in 2007, they started a series of annual limited edition releases all inspired by a variety of US cities:*

2007 - Absolut New Orleans (Mango and Black Pepper)

2008 - Absolut Los Angeles (Acai, Acerola, Pomegranate & Blueberry)

2009 - Absolut Boston (Black Tea & Elderflower)

2010 - Absolut Brooklyn (Red apple & Ginger)

2011 - Absolut San Francisco (Grape, Dragon Fruit & Papaya)

2011 - Rio (Orange, Mango and Passionfruit)

2012 - Absolut Miami (Passionfruit & Orange Blossom)

Today Absolut Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco have been re-branded as permanent editions as Absolut Berry Acai, Wild Tea and Grapevine, respectively. Absolut Brooklyn was re-branded Absolut Orient Apple and I picked up a bottle of this during a recent jaunt abroad.

Absolut Orient Apple is bottled at 40% ABV and blends Absolut Blue with flavours of ginger and apple.

How does it taste?


On its own
Nose: Fresh apple, alongside some leafy elements, but no immediately evident ginger. Maybe some cinnamon and nutmeg (spice).
Taste: Quite smooth, with both apple and pear coming through strongly. Ginger appears as a fiery tingle on the finish.

Frozen
This was sweet and a little thicker than the vodka at room temperature. Good apple flavour is accompanied by some spice and a hint of caramel and toffee. Very nice. I thought this was a particularly good way to enjoy this vodka.

Martini
This was richer and more creamy than drinking the vodka on its own; it was also sweeter and had more of a buttery apple flavour. It had quite a pudding-like flavour to it, being softer and less fresh, but the ginger was lost for me. Overall, I thought this was okay.

Vodka & Tonic
Quite pleasant, this had a good amount of flavour; mainly fresh apple and some spice. A slight bitterness reminded me of a little of apple soda. Refreshing and tasty.

*Absolut Vancouver and Absolut London (2012) are both part of a similar "city series" but disappointingly they are just regular Blue Absolut in a fancy bottle. I personally would have like to have seen Absolut London flavoured with Tea and Juniper.