Cherniy Rytsar (“Black Knight”) is a herbal liqueur produced by Belarusian company Vitebsk Alcoholic Beverages Factory “Pridvine”. Pridvine was established already at 1898 and is nowadays a modern company which produce great selection of different alcohol drinks. The company owns also Bogushevsky Distillery, which is focused to produce pure rectified spirit. At 2015 both companies were merged to Minsk Kristal Group, where are total 8 different alcohol producers from Belarus. Cherniy Rytsar is made by great selection of herbs like oregano, thymian, peppermint, sage, ginger, coffee beans, silverweed rootstock, sweet willow, birch bud, sweet clover, carob pods and rose hips. It’s sweetened by honey and coloured by caramel colour. 20cl bottle costs 2.99€ at AlcoShop.

Cherniy Rytsar is a strong herbal liqueur. Nose is deep and mellow, taste is strong, alcohol burns reasonably. It’s more on the dry side than liqueurs normally. Taste is moderate bitter but still not enough to put this on digestive bitter section. I can feel there are used some exotic herbs which are not common on other herbal liqueurs. Unfortunately it feels bit unbalanced, there are some spices (clove) which are slightly overpowering. Entirety is a bit musty, maybe due some herbs which bring fuggy notes. Bitter nuances stays to the mouth for a long time. 

78/100