Blavod

This is a drink I've only recently discovered. My daughter, (a trifle demanding at eighteen months) was away with her auntie for a few days and I deemed that reason enough to throw a big party and invite a few friends round for some beer, gossip, and cuddly toy abuse. Now, my parties are always B.Y.O.P (Bring your own poison), but I also tend to purchase some lager and a few bottles of something strong just to help the evening kick off a bit. I also tend to buy unusual drinks that people may not have tried before, reasoning that either a) they will be impressed by my knowledge of exotic brew or b) they’ll decide it's disgusting, leaving all the more devil brew ...

Blavod, in case you haven't come across it, is a black vodka. Logically named then, but I do tend to refer to the stuff as "Blodka", mainly because it makes me giggle. (Yes I'm immature, but what can you do?!) I first noticed Blavod about a year and a half ago, on one of my evening trips around Sainsbury's. I was getting together with the boyfriend at the time, and we spent every night wandering around supermarkets, finding strange drinks to challenge each other to and even stranger meat to cook on disposable barbeques. In the haze that surrounded that summer, I still distinctly remember the day we stumbled across Blavod. Vodka is my all-time ...

I rediscovered this sultry looking bottle one summer weekend lurking behind my weetabix. I was desperately looking for something lardy to eat, but the Blavod was a good find as we were having a party that evening, so I dusted the bottle down and deposited it on the kitchen counter with the other less bizarre looking spirits. Come sunday morning, when the garden was littered with the comatose bodies of friends and spongers, the frosted bottle of Blavod was practically unscathed, it's murky contents in place amidst the ravaged shells of smirnoff and the sucked dry green gin bottles. Blavod, for the uninitiated, is Black Vodka. That's it really. It ...