MY husband has this theory that if you drink vodka - and only vodka - all evening, you will suffer no hangover in the morning.

Not just any old vodka, I hasten to add. Not the stuff distilled in Warrington nor any of the other mass market varieties that will soon be splashed across our TV screens in an effort to make us - literally - imbibe the Christmas spirit.

No, it has to be Polish vodka. My husband, you will not be surprised to know when you look at my surname, maintains that only the vodka of his native Poland, is "chysty" - clean.

Hangover or not, it is certainly delicious. And, just as a good Scot will not dilute a long matured malt whiskey with water, so the Poles never adulterate their vodka. To them it would be quite alien to order a Bloody Mary or a vodka and tonic.

They drink their vodkas neat in tiny glasses, often beautifully decorated and handed down in families. I say vodkas, because the range of flavours is almost beyond belief.

My own favourite is Zubrowka, and there is a bison on the label. Inside every bottle is a long, tapering blade of grass - a variety called bison grass growing on the plains; it gives the vodka a subtle, aromatic flavour. You have to drink it freezer cold.

Real Polish vodkas are not that easy to find in this country - at least, not in any variety. So it was an unexpected birthday treat when said husband and son took me to a new restaurant called Baltic on the other side of Blackfriars bridge.

Here were the vodkas I had fallen for in Krakow - deep crimson rowan berry (Jarzebiak), Krupnik (honey), the best cure for colds when a liberal measure is mixed with boiling water, cherry, delicate lemon, and blackcurrant.

They had some that were new to me - dill, ginger, peppercorn, caraway, dried fruit and even potato vodka (is that a sort of Polish poteen, I wonder).

There, also, was the one I love at Christmas - Goldwasser. It is a clear, liqueur vodka filled with specks of real gold leaf. When the bottle is still - nothing. When you shake it the effect is exactly like the snowstorms in children's snowscenes.

All this makes me extremely homesick for a Krakow Christmas of horse drawn sleighs and warming borscht (beetroot soup). Whatever the weather here, in Krakow the snow will be deep, the cold numbing and crisp - just like the vodka. Sto lat - Cheers!

December 19, 2001 10:30