Words by Helena Nicklin
The drinks industry is a fascinating place to be and we are constantly tasting drinks that delight and surprise. One such tasting happened with the launch of this wonderful spirit from Belvedere, the sophisticated vodka brand owned by luxury goods company LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey). Enter stage right, Belvedere Heritage 176. Why the inverted commas around vodka in the title? The Heritage 176 is only distilled to 92% pure alcohol rather than the 96% that legally defines the spirit as vodka, hence why you’ll see ‘spirit drink’ on the label. For all intents and purposes however, it is essentially a particularly tasty vodka.
Tasting Vodka’s Past
The vodka industry has seen a plethora of artificially flavoured, sickly sweet vodkas flooding the shelves over the past few years but happily, it looks as though those days are coming to an end and there is now a strong movement back to the authenticity of the liquid in the bottle. Alone however, vodka has always been a spirit that tends to split the judges. To some, it’s an uninteresting, inoffensive, neutral spirit. Others are fascinated by the subtle complexities that the various raw materials give it. I was always somewhere in the middle if I’m honest until I met some premium brands that made me think twice about how beautiful fine vodka can be in its simplicity.
The Belvedere Heritage 176
Belvedere itself is a premium brand that deserves to be taken seriously. While vodka can be made with just about anything you can ferment, from potatoes to all kinds of cereals, Belvedere is made in Poland purely with local rye over their eight farms to add character and spice. It has a citrusy finesse and a vanilla creaminess that makes it fine enough to sip alone as well as add to cocktails. They’re leading the way for more characterful vodkas, with two other, single estate releases (Smogóry Forest and Lake Bartężek) focussing on rye from different ‘terroirs’, taking their lead from the wine world.
Their new baby, Belvedere Heritage 176, is made using Polska rye and purified water with nothing else added. More importantly however, it’s made the old fashioned way, by producing a malted rye spirit. In a nutshell, this involves controlling the germination of the barley by steeping it, then drying it in a kiln to become ‘malted’ barley, where it can then be fermented as the starches have been broken down into fermentable sugars. While malt whisky lovers will be very familiar with this process, sadly this traditional method has all but died out with the vodkas in Poland (and other spirits worldwide) as it's much quicker and cheaper to use additional enzymes (diastase and amylase) to do this job of breaking down the starch. The Belvedere Heritage 176 is bringing the process home with this traditional malting method, heating the barley to a whopping 176 degrees (hence the name) to dry it, which gives it additional, bolder, rich aromas and flavours of walnut, toffee fudge, cream and vanilla with a subtle, spicy kick and seductive viscosity. So strong is the resulting rye spirit from the distillation, only 2% of it is needed in the blend (with the regular vodka) to give it this moreish character.
How to drink Belvedere Heritage 176
Such is the character of this spirit, it is enough to have it alone over ice, maybe with a twist of lemon. It will however, make a fantastic addition to any cocktail, especially vodka martinis, but here’s a super simple recipe that blew us away with its subtle, sweet notes of fudge, citrus and macadamia nut cream:
Ingredients
50ml Belvedere Heritage 176
5ml Honey syrup (3 parts good honey stirred with 1 part boiling water)
4 Dashes Walnut Bitters (we love Fee Bros Black Walnut Bitters)
Lemon peel twist
Method
Combine the ingredients in a mixing glass and stir well for a solid minute. Pour into a tumbler with ice - preferably one large block rather than smaller shards - and garnish with the lemon twist. Utterly delightful.
ABV: 40%
Size: 700ml
Find here: £34.95
Enjoyed this? Make sure you check out One Drink, Three Ways: Belvedere Organic Infusions or The Best Value Vodkas For Martinis.