Adeline – Axberg Vodka
The spirit category I neglect the most definitely is vodka. However, every time I do get a new one, I tend towards Vesper variations. Luckily, I also got my hands on a great grape marc spirit to pair the vodka with.
Hans Reisetbauer uses locally grown wheat of the Mulan variety for his vodka. The wheat mash is then distilled on copper stills which you can see in my article about our distillery visit. Afterwards, Reisetbauer bring the vodka down to a drinking strength of 40 % with spring water from an alp in the Muehlviertel.
Very neutral with wheat notes
Yes, there is not a lot to taste here, but I guess this is the aim of a vodka. Apart from slightly sweet menthol notes, you can find certain hints of wheat. The drinking experience is quite smooth with just a touch of alcoholic burn.
An excellent grape marc spirit
I discovered the Bela Rex grape marc spirit in an Austrian online shop. It took a while for the bottle to get to me, but I was more than happy to try it. For the spirit Hans uses the grape pomace from the Bela Rex wine from the Gesellmann vineyard. In the end, the grape marc spirit is bottled at 41,5 %.
Vodka works in this one
What I did for the ‘Adeline’ cocktail was basically just to switch out the gin in a Vesper cocktail for the Bela Rex grape marc spirit. Yet, I thought long and hard about the combination of bitters to use here. In the end, I went with citrus notes from a yuzu bitter and some umami flavours brought by olive bitters. Furthermore, I added one green sweet olive to the mixing glass and also garnish the Martini carafe with it.
3 cl Reisetbauer Bela Rex Grape Marc Spirit
3 cl Cocchi Americano
1 Dash The Bitter Truth Olive Bitters
1 Sweet Green Olive
Stir – strain – chilled small Cocktail glass – add rest to a carafe;
Garnish: Lemon Twist, Sweet Green Olive;
Song: Alt-J – Adeline;
First, the drink starts with classic Vesper and Martini flavours. Yet, the grape marc spirit kicks in quite soon. On top of that, the olive notes take the drink in a slight Dirty Martini direction, but not too far. All in all, this is a very tasty and dare I say even summery Martini variation.
*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. The vodka and the grape marc spirit were provided by Reisetbauer.
