Gorzka wódka, gorzka wódka trzeba ją osłodzić! – everyone in Poland knows this wedding song. Where is it from? And where did polish vodka come from anyway? You will find answers to all of those questions and many others in the newly opened Museum of Polish Vodka.

Museum of Polish Vodka is located in Centrum Praskie Koneser in Praga  district. this is the area where the old “Koneser” vodka factory used to be. All museum collections and exhibitions are placed in the building where vodka used to be purified.

We decided to meet a few minutes before the tour. I thought that since the museum is in the area of Koneserer, the entrance should be located on Ząbkowska street. No! Wrong!

Entrance to the museum is located on nieporęcka street, so it took me a while to get there. I think, that it would be a good idea to place more signs with directions to the museum. Getting there was a little bit of a struggle. Anyway, Balmas called me also to ask where I am and to be sure that she is in the right place. Museum opened just few days ago, but the whole are of Koneser is still under renovation so don’t be suprised when you find yourself on the construction side.

To drink or not to drink…

Ticket to the museum costs 40zł (about 10 euro. first I thought that it is expensive. Later I found out that sightseeing is with a guide (polish or English speaking) as well as vodka tasting is included in the price. After buying the tickets and making a decision that drinking vodka at 11 a.m. is a good idea we finally went to see the exhibition.

Tickets can be bought via the internet but also in the ticket office in the museum itself, if there are still free places for the tour. Tours are taking places every 20 minutes. When you buy tickets in the internet you will find all the info about hours of the tours and in which language it will be. Group counts max 25 people. Museum is open from  Monday to Friday 10 a.m. till 20 p.m.  and on weekends from 11 a.m. till 21 p.m. We are lucky – our group counts 4 people so it’s a VIP tour 😀

Our glorious – Wyborowa

The whole tour through the world of polish vodka starts with a short movie in which you will see former employees of ” koneser” vodka factory. They are reminiscing about production and marketing of Wyborowa – one of the finest vodka in Poland which is exported all over the world. In my opinion it’s a very good introduction to the exhibition.

After the movie a guide is taking us to the world of vodka’s history. How did it all begin? Do you know that in the beginning, vodka was produced as a medicine and it didn’t need to have any alcohol in it? For us that was quite surprising. (polish people :D)

Museum is interactive so you will find a lot of screens that you can touch and  many interactive attractions. You will also see how the whole process of making vodka takes place. From fermentation to packing and also you will find out where in Poland vodka is still produced and where it was before.

Labels, stickers, graphic design

I think that my favorite hall was the place where you can find bottles of vodka from different periods of time in modern cabinets. Different shapes of bottles, patterns of labels and graphic designs showing us ads of vodkas. Wyborowa, Luksusowa, Vistula, many different kinds of flavored vodka – you will find there almost everything. You will also see some vodkas that were produced  only for export and were never sold in Poland.

Majority of exhibits were acquired during the action that took place over on  Museum’s Facebook page. If you have old bottles of vodka somewhere, or you dig through your grandma’s basement, come across some bottles and don’t know what to do with them? You can still give those to the Museum.

In the last hall you can check how your vision will change after consuming different amounts of alcohol.You will also find out about polish traditional vodka  appetizers, toasts and can even test your knowledge in some quizzes.

It appears that I’m a typical Pole which drinks vodka mainly with juice on the side, drinks it on the weddings or gives it as a present for birthdays. Well…I’m nothing original.

Vodka in the morning? Not a great idea…

Last but not least – vodka tasting. It is after 12 a.m. so in the end why not?! Supposedly gentlemen do not drink only till noon and we are soladylike 😀

I never thought that I will taste vodka as wine, but apparently it happened. Very nice guy told us all the infoabout every kind of vodka that we had in front of us. The main part of tasting is finish which should give us a taste (the same like in a wine tasting) of different flavors that are contained in the alcohol… unfortunately, we aren’t connoisseurs of vodka. After tasting we can only say which one was strong or not. And the winner is… Ostoya.

We recommend you Museum of Polish vodka. It is a very interesting place, guides are giving you lots of information and you can drink vodka in the price of tickets 😀

We only had one issue. During the tour there should be more time (there is actually none) to wander around and discover on your own. In every hall there are interactive screens, some movies and other interesting exhibits, but there is no time to play with those, because you need to go to the next hall already. Guide is showing what you can find on those screensbut there’s just no time to do it. We are ‘making’ our own vodka on one of the screens with other people from the group, but I want to do this on my own!

I think that 3 minutes more in every hall would be good to have a quick look on the exhibition and take photos. I don’t feel satisfied, I think there is still something that I could check out while in there. Maybe this is a strategy of Museum to force us to come back for another visit?