Vodka

Genoese envoys bring aqua vitae to MoscowLegend

The story goes that Genoese ambassadors carried aqua vitae to Moscow and gave it to Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy in 1386. Russian writers cite it as an early landmark. It is a tale passed down, and the drink in question was a medicine, not today's vodka.

Sandomierz court writes wódka

Polish scholars point to a record of 1405 from the court of the Palatinate of Sandomierz as the first written use of the word wódka. At that time it named medicines and cosmetics, so the record shows the word more than the modern drink.

Ivan III claims the trade for the state

According to Wikipedia, Ivan III set up the first Russian state monopoly on vodka in 1474. Russian accounts treat it as proof of an old trade. Poland answers that its records of the spirit are earlier. Both sides are making claims, and neither has closed the question.

The word appears in Cyrillic

The word vodka first appears in Cyrillic in 1533, describing a medicinal drink that Russian merchants brought from Poland to Russia. Each country can read that line as support for its own case, which is why the argument has lasted so long.

Horilka is written down

The Ukrainian word horilka, from a verb meaning to burn, is attested in writing in 1562. Polish gorzałka comes from the same root. The Slavic names for the spirit speak of fire, while the word vodka speaks of water, and both are old.

Empress Elizabeth uses the word in law

A decree of Empress Elizabeth dated 8 June 1751, regulating who could own vodka distilleries, is the first official Russian document to use the word vodka in its modern sense. The law came from a state that already understood how much money the spirit raised.

Lwów opens an industrial distillery

J. A. Baczewski opened the first industrial distillery in 1782 in Lwów, now Lviv. The trade was leaving farmhouse stills for factory floors, and what had been a homemade spirit was becoming something with a label and a price list.

Haberfeld builds at Oświęcim

Jakub Haberfeld founded a factory at Oświęcim in 1804. The Polish lands had several of these early industrial distillers, and their names, along with Baczewski and Kantorowicz, are the ones Polish historians reach for when they describe the trade before the monopolies.

Wyborowa starts in Poznań

Hartwig Kantorowicz is credited with beginning to make Wyborowa in Poznań in 1823. The brand became an international trademark in 1927 and is made from rye. It remains a standard bottle in Poland and a plain case for the rye tradition.

Russia repeals the vodka monopoly

Russia repealed its state monopoly on vodka production in 1863. Prices fell sharply and the spirit became affordable to people with little money. By 1911 vodka made up 89 percent of all the alcohol drunk in the country, which shows how quickly the habit took hold.

Pyotr Smirnov opens in Moscow

Pyotr Smirnov, born a serf in 1831, set up his distillery in Moscow in 1864. He pioneered charcoal filtration in the 1870s and by the 1880s supplied vodka to the Tsar. The name Smirnoff would later travel much farther than he did.

The Mendeleev mythLegend

A popular story says the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev fixed vodka at 40 percent in 1894. It is lore and has been debunked. His 1865 dissertation measured water and alcohol mixtures and never called forty percent ideal. His tax work was about revenue, not blending.

The state takes over the vodka industry

After Pyotr Smirnov died in 1898, his son Vladimir took over the firm. When the Tsar's government nationalized the vodka industry in 1904, Vladimir was forced to sell. The family name outlasted the family business, though not in Russia, and the next chapter would be written abroad.

The Smirnovs reach Constantinople

After the October Revolution of 1917 the Smirnov family left Russia and reached Constantinople in 1920, then moved on to Poland and later France. Vladimir carried the recipe and the name into exile, and the distilling in Moscow fell to others who had no claim on the name.

Poland monopolizes clear vodka

In 1925 the production of clear vodkas became a Polish government monopoly. After the Second World War the distilleries passed to the state again, and during martial law in the 1980s the sale of vodka was rationed to households. The state held the tap in both countries.

Heublein buys Smirnoff for 14,000 dollars

Vladimir Smirnov sold Rudolph Kunett the North American rights in 1933. In 1939 John Martin of Heublein bought them for 14,000 dollars and sold the vodka to Americans as white whiskey with no taste and no smell, a pitch that worked.

The Moscow Mule is poured

By the Herald Tribune account, Jack Morgan, John Martin and Rudolph Kunett made the first Moscow Mule in Manhattan in 1941, using vodka, ginger beer and lime. A 2007 report credits a bartender instead, so the origin story depends on who tells it.

PepsiCo trades cola for Stolichnaya

In 1972 PepsiCo struck a barter deal with the Soviet government, taking export and marketing rights to Stolichnaya in exchange for Pepsi imports, with Soviet bottles bound for American shelves. It was described as the first food production cooperation between the United States and the USSR.

Absolut arrives in New Orleans

Absolut was shown at a spirits trade convention in New Orleans in spring 1979, and the first American order, for 6,300 liters, came on 20 April. The clear bottle with printed lettering came from an old apothecary design. By 1985 it led imported vodka in the United States.

Ketel One reaches San Francisco

Ketel One entered the United States in 1983 through San Francisco, winning bartenders and distributors before it ever advertised to the public, a patient way to build a name. It comes from a Nolet family tradition in Schiedam that the family dates to 1691.

Grey Goose and Tito's both begin

The premium boom had two very different starts in 1997. Sidney Frank launched Grey Goose in France with a cognac cellar master, and Tito Beveridge began making corn vodka in Austin, Texas, with 1,000 cases in the first year. Both would grow very large.

Bacardi pays about 2.2 billion for Grey Goose

Bacardi bought Grey Goose from Sidney Frank in 2004 for about 2.2 billion dollars. The sum showed how far a vodka built on image and a smooth finish had come in only seven years, and every distiller in Europe and America noticed. The sum was the loudest signal of the decade.

The EU sets a definition

The EU vodka rules took effect in 2008 with a minimum strength of 37.5 percent. After years of argument by the Vodka Belt countries, the compromise said vodka made from anything other than grain, potatoes or sugar beet molasses must carry a label naming the source.

Polish Vodka gains its indication

Polish Vodka received protected geographical indication status on 13 January 2013. It must be made from one of five cereals or from Polish potatoes, with every step except bottling done in Poland. It is a rule about origin, not a statement about who invented vodka.

Stolichnaya becomes Stoli

In March 2022 the Stoli Group changed the name of its vodka from Stolichnaya to its nickname Stoli, citing the invasion of Ukraine. Trademark ownership of the original name had been disputed between SPI Group and a Russian state company since 2003.