Szarlotka is the Polish word for apple cake, and the drink borrowed the name because that is exactly what it tastes like. It is made with żubrówka, vodka flavored with a blade of bison grass, a sweet smelling grass that grows in the ancient Białowieża Forest on the border with Belarus, where herds of European bison still roam. The grass gives the vodka notes of vanilla, hay and almond, and mixed with cloudy apple juice the result is uncannily like dessert. Outside Poland it is sometimes called a Tatanka.

It is the easiest cocktail in this book, a summer drink for the garden or the end of a long race day, and a reminder that Poland's vodka culture is about flavor as much as strength.

The drink

Ingredients

• 3 fl oz (90 ml) bison grass vodka
• 6 fl oz (180 ml) cloudy apple juice
• 1 pinch ground cinnamon
• 2 thin apple slices
• plenty ice cubes

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