Thursday, March 23, 2006

Vodka University

Evening all. I'm soothing myself as I settle in for the night with my first Tatanka, a drink comprising two thirds apple juice to one third Zubrowka vodka, and very nice it is too.

(Tatanka, by the way, is the Lakota native American word for Bison hence "Sitting Bull", the legendary Chief, is an English rendering of Tatanka Yotanka. How a Polish cocktail got a Red Indian name I have no idea. Which reminds me - moving East instead of West - there is a blues guitar slack tuning (DADF#AD) called Sevastopol. I've similarly no idea how that got from the Crimea to the New World ..... intertwingled ...... intertwingled.)

Further - and as part of my relentless drive for self improvement - I've signed up for Vodka University at the Fifth Floor bar in Harvey Nichols on April 3rd. This will comprise a history of the fearsome tipple from the twelfth century to the twenty first followed by a tasting of fifteen (count 'em) top vodkas from around the world including - from my own Polish syllabus - Wyborowa.

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