Jelzin Vanilla

France

Jelzin Vanilla vodka

Boris Yeltsin’s fun

This is a review of Jelzin Vanilla vodka from France. I sampled it in Germany in 2011. It’s a clear infusion, 37.5% alcohol, and I thought it was at best mediocre.

This was kind of weird. It seems as though it’s mostly German vodka brands that like to use the names of Russian personalities to boost their sales.

Imagine Russians selling beer under the labels of “Schröder” or “Kohl” or “Adenauer”. Who knows, maybe they’re doing that already? Anyway, in Germany we have Gorbatschow Blue Label (which I later found out had nothing to do with Mikhail Gorbachev) and Puschkin (which I’ll be reviewing later).

But this one, called Jelzin Vanilla, isn’t from Germany. It’s from France. Which is weird because the name of the brand is using the German spelling of the name Yeltsin. In French it would be Eltsine.

the party bear

Jelzin vodka belongs to a French company called Groupe GCF. They seem to be mostly into the wine business. Sadly, their brand page doesn’t offer much information and feels pretty generic:

Jelzin vodka page
from groupegcf.com/our-brands/jelzin on October 9th 2021

UNRIVALLED PURITY. SYMBOL OF RARITY. 15 MILLION BOTTLES SOLD. Okay. As I’m writing this in 2021, the site vodkajelzin.com is down.

There’s a brief mention of a RANGE OF NATURALLY-FLAVOURED LIQUEURS, but it doesn’t say anything about this particular Jelzin Vanilla vodka we have here:

Jelzin vodka page
from groupegcf.com/our-brands/jelzin on October 9th 2021

Another thing I noticed was the strong emphasis on fun: JELZIN, A REAL PARTY PIECE! it says. Every brand has its angle, I guess.

Jeltsin Vanilla is only good in a mixer

Now back to our review: Jelzin Vanilla vodka was disappointing: it was harsh on the way down, and there was nothing particularly interesting in the taste. The aftertaste profited massively from the vanilla flavoring, though. Not so bad.

I thought the bottle design was average. It looked a bit cheap, which seemed to make sense because the price of 9€ for 700ml seemed to suggest a bottom-shelf product.

Get this if you want something interesting for your vodka+coke. It works well that way.

Don’t bother to have Jelzin Vanilla vodka neat, though. Unless someone like the actual Boris Yeltsin is around:

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