Featured Libation: The Mellow Cello Fizz
The Grand Budapest Hotel’s war-torn Republic of Zubrowka might be fictional, but the bison grass vodka of the same name is a bona fide, Polish delight.
When sipped straight, vodka can be quite the formidable foe. But let’s face it, your average vodka is an absolute pushover in a cocktail. Not so with the Mellow Cello Fizz; a deceptively heavy-hitting vodka cocktail with a light floral and citrus finesse. A firm, year-long favourite at Buyers Club, The Mellow Cello Fizz is a sweet but crisp cocktail with a little more clout and complexity than your typical, tried-and-tested springtime sipper. Thanks to a most inspired pairing of Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka and Limoncello (a sweet, lemon infused Italian digestif), the Mellow Cello Fizz delivers a heftier riff on the classic Ramos Gin Fizz whilst maintaining the original’s famously pleasing pétillance.
It’s in cocktails like this that Zubrowka really sets itself apart from other vodkas. Quadruple-distilled from rye and infused with Polish bison grass, the vodka boasts a singular spice, a rounded botanical liveliness and a surprising vanillin silkiness that goes above and beyond your average little water. Each bottle of Zubrowka even contains a single blade of bison grass, which is added by hand in a testament to its authenticity.
By all accounts, The Mellow Cello Fizz goes down easier than a Mendl’s cake and is strong enough to help you forget the fact that The Grand Budapest Hotel – for all its spellbinding symmetry and splendour – doesn’t actually exist.
Imagery by Tom Griffiths, Buyer’s Club, Liverpool
Words by Will Halbert
