The prime years for partying – late teens to early twenties – coincided, for me, with the Australian Government increasing taxes on alcopops in an effort to stop binge drinking of the drinks by teenagers. It was all over the news for many years, but I paid it little heed. Alcohol is a very occasional drink for me – I try alcohol out of curiosity for the numerous variety of fruity flavours rather than for the buzz, so I’ve never felt compelled to fill up on the ever-popular Barcadi Breezers or Vodka Cruisers.

Fast forward ten years, though, and my weakness for anything lychee-flavoured finds me trying this Mishka Tasty Apple Lychee Vodka.

The vodka is brilliant fluorescent green with a sweet apple flavour. Served chilled, the drink was pleasantly effervescent, with the candy sweet flavour of green apples featuring prominently throughout with a hint of alcoholic bitterness the background. Floral and tropical notes of lychee are absent, while the apple flavour recalled the Green Apple Hi-Chew without the crisp apple acidity that brought a pleasant tartness to a fresh apple flavour. For all that, the candy sweetness makes it easy to drink, but the artificial apple flavour – not fresh as in a cider – and the absence of even a hint of lychee makes it unlikely that’d we repurchase.

This Mishka Tasty Apple Lychee Vodka contained 275 ml. It was bottled in France and purchased in Sydney, Australia in 2017.