Nose: Artificial berry aromas, both in a good and bad way (see below). Palate: Sweet, strongly artificial berry flavour. Benedryl cough mixture. The texture should be creamy but the flavour is so harsh it combats the texture. There is a sour, mineral-like note. Finish: Short, but not short enough. The artificial berry flavour lingers. This is the last of the 4 tasting samples in the Absolut pack I bought recently, and I intentionally saved what I thought would be either the best or the worst for last. It is the worst. There is a moment, one pure golden moment, when you first nose this that you think – “oh, this is nice, it smells just like fresh berries”. That lasts about 2 seconds. Then your senses are overcome by the irresistible impression that what you are really smelling is berry-flavoured soft drink. This sort of unbalances you, but only for a moment, and you adjust and think “OK, that’s not quite what I thought at first, but it’s alright”. Then the bomb drops. Suddenly, as if it is smashing through a brick wall, you get an overpowering waft of berry-flavoured cough syrup, and the dream is shattered. Then you taste it, and all your worst fears are realized. Artificial berry flavour by the container-load and nothing else. The slide from positive to negative on this profile is vertiginous. It’s a very poor flavoured vodka, and there is no way I’d recommend this. The Absolut Lime and Citron are good spirits and I would consider buying either as a gin alternative to have with tonic. The Vanilla vodka is a bit strange, but fun and palatable. This is just ... not nice. Its only saving grace is that the underlying spirit is of excellent quality. Tasted from a 50ml retail sample. “Poor” : 60/100 (1 star)