Polugar Wheat Vodka (75cl, 38.5%)

Polugar Wheat Vodka is a grain spirit modelled on the pot-distilled 'bread wine' of eighteenth-century Russia, made from a blend of malted and unmalted wheat. It is distilled three times in copper pot stills rebuilt from 18th-century drawings, in Poland, by the Rodionov family. The spirit is clarified with egg whites and filtered through white birchwood charcoal, using natural water rather than chemical purification. It is bottled at 38.5%, the traditional 'half-gar' strength, in a bottle shaped after an old snuff bottle. The nose is assertive, with breakfast cereal, a little candle wax, apple, white grape and yellow plum. The palate is clean, dry and deeply grainy, with raisiny ripeness and an apple-like acidity through the middle.