"Mal-A-Vitch" by Ed Moses, from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (photo by CKDH)

As mentioned in a previous post, I visited Red Square in Mandalay Bay as part of my latest Las Vegas misadventures.  For those of you who may not be familiar, Red Square is a bar & restaurant with an ostensibly  post-communist Muscovite flavor; a giant, headless, faux-guano adorned statue of Vladimir Lenin stands guard near the main entrance.   It is best known for two features: slabs of ice built into the bar, and a two-story high vodka freezer complete with a dining/meeting room and  private vodka lockers available for lease.  There is a full restaurant menu, and the food turned out to be surprisingly good, though not at all Russian besides the caviar.  No matter; food wasn’t the point of our visit.

I am not much of a vodka drinker.  My taste in spirits tends towards the bolder:  scotch, especially neat or with ice, and bourbon, rum, and even tequila when mixed.  There’s nothing wrong with vodka, mind you, but it’s not typically something I’m ever going to seek out; however, since I was with a group of vodka drinkers, including Mrs. CKDH and Mr. J, in an establishment known for its extensive vodka selection, vodka would be the drink of the night.

Red Square offers an assortment of four-shot vodka flights — all Russian, all New World, all Really Freakin’ Expensive (my description, not theirs), among others.  After some discussion, Mr. J and I decided to split the following flights:

• Staff Favorites by Cole:  Pravda (Poland), Stoli Elite (Russia), Youri Dolgoruki (Russia), Zyr (Russia)
• Potato Vodka:  Luksosawa (Poland), Chopin (Poland), Karlsson’s Gold (Sweden), Blue Ice (USA)

Hard Eight: two sets of Red Square vodka tasting flights