79 out of 79 people found this review helpful.
absolute paint thinner taste without sufficient paint thinner function
Date of Review: Mar 24, 2001
The Bottom Line: if spending $10 for a lousy taste is what you're after, you can eat my cooking for $8, I make money, everybody goes home happy
"There are no opinions that do not recommend this item." That, at least, I can fix. And must. To do less would be dishonest: this stuff is lousy.
Not long after I tried Absolut Citron, in an unconnected thread of life, I was casting about for ways to remove a couple of obsolete bumper stickers from my truck. They literally dated back to the first Bush administration. (Pardon me a moment. I feel nostalgic and need to go find someone's lap to heave up my cookies in.) When you deal with a lot of people in a relatively small urban area, you come to cherish a bit of anonymity.
Therefore, on one of my constitutional walks, I asked Randy--who (in contrast to my own vacuous ignorance) is Wise in the Ways of All Things Related to Working Construction--what the best method was. He suggested a slow, unpleasant, toilsome afternoon with single-edged razor blades. My response: "Randy. Dude. You've obviously mistaken me for someone who wants to work. I just want to spray or paint something on that takes off the stickers without destroying the chrome, harming the environment, or any real effort on my part."
Randy's recommendation was something called 'Citrus Orange'. Sounded pleasant enough. I conclusively proved my earlier statement about ignorance at three different types of stores trying to find it, and all I ended up with was some perplexed retail people and a bottle of something orange-smelling called 'Goo-Gone', which did no good at all. I might just as well have performed voodoo banishing rituals on the things, or written to someone else's congressman.
The Randinator chose that point in time to remember that Citrus Orange had changed its name and was now called 'Citrustrip', a product I'd walked past twice in stores. "Great, Randy. I'll just cover up my exposed butt now." (Not surprisingly, Randy endorsed this action, commenting upon the many bolts of fabric this would necessitate. What are friends for?)
It was in this context that I happened to be in a liquor store here in the scenic Tri-Cities buying some expensive single-malt scotch, and I saw half a fifth of Absolut Mandrin in a cooler. Normally one doesn't think of hard liquor being kept in a cooler, but my interest was piqued, having smelled a lot of orangey solvents lately.) Maybe it was better than the Citron flavour. After all, there was orange paint on the outside bottom of the bottle, giving the impression of some actual item of orange inside the bottle through the frosted glass, and you know how that can add to the flavour, just as artsy advertisements always improve the taste.
So I took it home, poured it over ice, and gave it a try.
Nose: a very strong orange smell, although slightly chemical-smelling (this may possibly have to do with the fact that there is vodka in it). Not unpleasant at all, but it smelled a lot like Citrustrip. An idea began to be shaken (not stirred) in my oft-buffeted brain.
Flavour: you cannot imagine how bad this is. Ok, here, let me attempt to explain it. Everyone's eaten an orange, right? You know that juice that you get from the outer peel--that really bitter, nasty stuff? There. This tastes like vodka flavoured liberally with the bitter oil from orange peels. It's awful. Simple, straight Stoli or Finlandia or even Smirnoff's would be better. I do not understand why someone would voluntarily ingest this. I can easily imagine it being rejected by discriminating indigent winos (who are often ok fellows... don't ask me how I know).
As bad as it is on ice, which is the first way I drank it, it's even nastier without the chill to kill the taste.
Please understand me here. I like a lot of strange flavours. I want to try haggis. I forced down authentic menudo. Down my Clif Bar-hole have gone muktuk, blood pudding, Vegemite, 'shine, marzipan, baba ghannooj, Israeli 'mud coffee', Hood River Vodka (for those who care enough to drink the very worst), anchovies, Irish poitin, C-rations, beef tendon, raw oysters, Everclear (gasp, hack), homemade blackberry wine, chicken gizzards (a Neoprene derivative), Washington beef, MD 20/20 mixed with Bacardi 151, hydrogen peroxide (by accident), a piece of carrot wedding cake (it was my own wedding, I had to eat it or hurt a nice lady's feelings), chorizo, borshch (not 'borscht', this is a mistransliteration), and Taco Bell. I branch out.
So when I tell you that something tastes like orange paint thinner, I'd say with no false modesty that I have an experienced palate that has suffered through a lot and is receptive to new tastes and textures. And when there's a form of booze that I don't want to drink at all, ever again, them's harsh words. Well, I'm done. I ain't drinking this in the future.
Finish: mostly relief that it was out of my mouth. Isopropanol and a little numbing, like any good industrial-grade disinfectant and solvent should taste.
Quality: now, we all know that the Absolut name stands for quality, right? After all, they have very creative, world-renowned advertising. How could anyone have good advertising and bad booze? Also, it's made in Sweden. Isn't every product from the 'Country of Sweden' (as it says on the bottle) of superb quality?
Actually, many Swedish products I've had experience with are of excellent quality. I'm not joking here. In fact, I consider the fact that I continue to like Abba a statement of diehard nonconformity; I really do enjoy their sound. Husqvarna chain saws. Ericsson electronics. Volvo cars. Some of the world's very finest iron ore and steel. Schnaps. Other vodkas. I speak a bit of the Swedish language. I respect their national policy of non-aligned, armed neutrality. Not only that, they are very good sports about being kidded, as they showed with their ratings of my Citron review. There is no way I am succumbing to Bill Bryson Syndrome.
(FYI, there is a US travel writer named Bill Bryson who makes a writing career of wandering through countries, eating, staying in hotels, visiting museums, and whining when everything he sees does not titillate, awe or enchant him. He can be funny and observant, but he's mostly embarrassing. Urbanist (q.v.) recently wrote an outstandingly perceptive review of one of his books. My life's dream is to see him in a game of Survivor.)
So when I say that the quality of Absolut Mandrin is suspect, roughing up my second Swedish product in a week, be assured that it has nothing to do with Sweden and everything to do with my belief that Absolut uses some sort of orange extract to cover up the flavour of really lousy vodka. It's far worse than Citron. I drank two small glasses over ice, about half of a 375ml bottle of an 80 proof beverage. Not only did it taste impure, I awoke with a pounding headache--the kind I normally expect after drinking about twice as much of something decent.
Uses: you knew we were coming back to this. (I like to foreshadow with a truncheon.) Having determined that I wasn't drinking any more of this orange turpentine, I decided that it might still serve to help me get the bumper stickers off the truck. It certainly smelled like the right stuff.
Well, on the bright side, it did slightly better than Goo-Gone. No lie--it loosened up the sticker just a bit around the edges. However, only a bit, so not only can I not recommend Absolut Mandrin as a boisson, it isn't even a very good paint thinner substitute. Citrustrip, by contrast, made short work of the bumper stickers. Frighteningly short, in fact. I'm going to watch it with that stuff. It be hungry.
And I suspect it probably could win the taste-test, too, though I didn't test that one and I hope no one else does.
