In his “History and Mythology of Polish Vodka: 1270-2007,” Simpson suggests that a group of Polish doctors brought the art of distillation home after studying at universities in Southern Europe during the late 1200s. Not too long after, Poland’s oldest university was founded, Jagiellonian University, which became the intellectual center of Polish medicine. In Poland, doctors were the first to make distilled tinctures—a drink they considered medicine. 

As late as the 16th century, Polish texts discussed formulations for wodki in a medicinal context, some of which did not even contain alcohol. (Simpson) The now archaic term gorzałka was synonymous for these distilled spirits. We can hear the echo of the medicinal legacy in okowita, Polish liquor named after the alchemist’s distillate aqua vitae, or water of life. 

Polish vodkas commonly came from grains, especially rye, but the oldest renditions likely relied on fruit as their base. Local herbs would infuse the spirit with medicinal and even supernatural properties. Witch trials in Poland occasionally mentioned herbal concoctions with vodka that may have been common during their time. (Ostling) To break the curse of a witch’s fever, a 1679 trial prescribes vodka infused with oak ashes, the root of a fern, and blood from a puppy’s left ear. Some herbal recipes even warded off a witch’s curse on distilling or beer-making pots. 

Herbalism infused itself to such an extent in Polish culture that it even permeated the dogma of the Roman Catholic church. It became accepted practice for Polish Catholics to string herbs together into wreaths which they burned as incense or hung in church at the celebration of St. John. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary was a particularly herbal observation in the cathedrals of Poland. The Holy Mother herself was called “Matka Boska Zielna,” or Our Lady of the Herbs. (Ostling)

The herbal tradition experienced a revival more recently. During the scarcity of communist Poland in the late 1900s, infusions of foraged plants were common thanks to the scarcity of sugar. Wild fruit offered up a free source of flavor or sweetness. (Luczaj) “Grandma’s recipe” could have included whitebeam, caraway, burnet saxifrage, burdock roots, horseradish roots, spotted gentian finger roots, mountain ash berries, or green-winged orchid roots. Foragers prized the sweet wild fruits most highly. 

The powers of these infusions may not be quackery either. Like wine, nalewka has the advantage of containing antioxidants. When fruits macerate in liquor, active chemicals diffuse into the alcohol and can then enter the bloodstream. Polak and Bartoszek studied several varieties of nalewka and found elderberry to have the most antioxidant properties. These infusions would have constituted the pharmacy of most Polish households not too long ago. 

The maker of Zubrowka bison-grass vodka claims that its recipe was originally banned in the United States because the Hierochloe odorata grass imparts the blood thinning agent coumari. Allegedly, they changed their recipe to suit American standards. (Theodore) This particular bison grass infusion is protected as uniquely Polish by European Parliament under EC110/2008 by the rather long name “Wódka ziołowa z Niziny Północnopodlaskiej aromatyzowana ekstraktem z trawy żubrowej” (Herbal vodka from the North Podlasie Lowland aromatised with an extract of bison grass).  The designation signifies the deep roots that these infusions have in Polish culture–roots that might just cure the common cold.