This past December, Sarah Dworak of Babushka Pierogies opened a weekend walk-up window at 1200 Main St. for conquering late night-cravings with kielbasa bowls and pierogies filled with everything from pizza toppings to Cincinnati-style lentil chili. The window has proven popular since opening in December, but its presence is only a sampling of what’s to come at the location.
Slated to open May 10, Dworak’s Wodka Bar (the “w” is pronounced like an English “v”) will be housed in the rest of the space attached to the pierogi window’s kitchen.
Wodka Bar will carry an ambitious selection of vodkas, stocking upward of 60 types including many Russian, Polish and Ukrainian brands that are lesser known in the United States. There will also be several dozen house-infused vodkas with flavors lent from ingredients like Russian Caravan black tea, caraway seeds, pine needles, rosemary, berries and citrus zest, among many others. The bar will offer a rotating cocktail list as well as a small selection of other spirits, European wines and a single draft beer: O.K. Beer, a Premium Lager from Brzesko, Poland’s Okocim Brewery.
Bar snacks are mandatory, of course, but forget about french fries and beer cheese. Instead, you can chase your shots with bites of caviar, pickled fish and vegetables, smoked meats, cheese and butter on dense, dark rye bread.
“Traditionally when you drink vodka you always want to eat something with it. We’re going to have some traditional foods on the menu that hopefully people won’t be too scared to try,” Dworak says.
She’s not pulling her recipes from any one country, instead focusing on common cuisines found across Slavic cultures.
Pierogies are one thing, but she says that the bar is the perfect complement to the food she’s been sharing with customers for years.
“It’s nice now to be able to pair the food and the drink of Eastern Europe together. It tells a more complete story,” she says.
The flavors of Wodka Bar won’t be its only transportive quality. Inside the intimate space, patrons will be enveloped by deep Prussian blues and rich golds, luxe velvet upholstery and distressed plaster walls, elegant wood paneling and all the intricacies of Eastern Orthodox architecture. Plans for the bar’s interior are intended to convey a sense of nostalgia for times and places past. Completing her maximalist vision for the space is a massive teal and orange stained glass ceiling light that was originally the rose window of a church.
It’s clear that Dworak’s efforts aren’t just about the pierogies or the vodka alone but rather the weight of culture and tradition they carry that she’s devoted herself to sharing.
“It’s exciting. I’m bringing this experience of Eastern Europe and I feel a sense of responsibility to do right by it,” Dworak says. “To be able to work in this environment of sharing authentic-ness of myself and my family, you know, it feels so good to do that. It’s a very rewarding life.”
Wodka Bar is located at 1200 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. Find more info here.
