Parliament

Russia

Parliament vodka

about filtration

This is a review of Parliament vodka from Russia. I sampled it in Russia in 2010. It’s clear, 40% alcohol, and I liked it as much as any other German would.

I’ve already told you how vodka brands often try to sell their brand rather than their product. It’s as if the stuff itself just wasn’t good enough – you always need an angle to sell it. Instead of just making tasty vodka, you need to evoke certain feelings in your customers.

With this one it’s about milk. Cow milk, that is.

the milk angle

So this brand is named Parliament vodka – Парламент. Hailing from Moscow, it’s relatively young and affordable, and yet it has already managed to build a pretty solid reputation. The angle is simple: Parliament vodka uses milk filtration.

I wanted to know more, so looked it up online. Interestingly enough, the first website I found was actually German – no wonder, since Parliament vodka seems to be very popular in Germany. The website was nicely made, and it explained how the filtration worked (it didn’t only involve milk). One thing I didn’t like was their use of Cyrillic letters to write German:

Parliament vodka site
from parliament-vodka.de on September 25th 2021

It’s a clichĂ©, and it’s dumb.

how Parliament vodka does

Anyway, all of this is just marketing. One thing I did notice was that the site claimed that Parliament vodka was 38.5% alcohol, while the stuff that I sampled in Russia was 40%. I might have to give the German version a separate try later.

The one I bought in Russia was about 11€ for 700ml, so the price was good. I thought the bottle design was okay, nothing special.

Parliament vodka tasted pretty good, though. It was smooth and went down easy. The aftertaste was aromatic in a nice way.

speak and drink

All in all, this one is what I would call a reliable vodka. It’s good for almost any purpose. And the name totally makes sense too: a Parliament is a place where people come to speak. And this is exactly what you should be doing when you’re having vodka – get together with friends and talk about stuff.

I still don’t understand the benefits of the milk filtration, though.