Belvedere Black Raspberry Vodka 750ml

Manufacturer's Notes: Black raspberry flavored vodka. Macerated with real fruit. A seductive blend of luscious black currants and rich raspberries combined with delicate rose petal essence.

"The Look: Tall and thin, this bottle looks like a frosted supermodel. For once, that looks even better in print than it did in our heads. However, we did find it humorous that a raspberry vodka's bottle was dominated by trees - after a few drinks we started toasting to the raspberry trees.

The Nose: At first, we weren't sure what to make of it. Sort of sweeter than we expected, and not as...raspberry-y. That's a word right? Then we realized...the smell coming out of the bottle was as close to putting your nose in a basket of actual raspberries we've run into in a liquor, short of actually having one of those green basket thingies in our hands. Serious points for getting such a full, jammy scent reminiscent of a red fruit packed into a clear liquor.

The Taste: We have something to admit - we realize we've lowered our expectations of flavored vodkas. We expect them to taste like the Hubba Bubba bubble gum versions of the flavors, big and bursty and not exactly on. Once we tasted the sweet and delicate flavor of this black raspberry we saw the error of our ways. It's full and round with a very raspberry finish, all without making us feel like we just swished with Kool-Aid. The finish was dry and sweet all at the same time, bursting with real fruit flavors of dark berries reminiscent of late summer for us. The alcohol taste wasn't especially strong either, making us think you could make a nice delicate cocktail with this stuff." -liquorsnob.com