It's about what's IN the bottle
Go to pick out a bottle of Vodka at the retailer and you’ll immediately notice the trends that dominate premium and super premium Vodkas. Fantastic bottles with great graphics, textures, and shapes are everywhere. Each one is more elaborate than the last and all are quite expensive. Looking closer you’re sure to notice that they are proud to be distilled five, no seven, no ten times! You’ll find brands by Donald Trump, P Diddy, Dan Aykroyd (I love Aykroyd but watch the video clip and you’ll see a prime example of the current Vodka trend of selling bottles rather than booze), and Ed Hardy. You’ll also get to choose from Vodkas made from grain, grapes, potatoes, and so on. So in this jungle of gimmicks and marketing how are you supposed to choose a good vodka? It’s easy, just turn around and look at the less expensive stuff in not so glamorous bottles. Case in point Sobieski.
Truth told Sobieski IS one of those expensive, flashy, Vodkas in a not so flashy bottle. Really! The original producers of Belvedere, one of the Vodkas that started the current super premium trend, grew tired of the game. So they sold the rights to produce Belvedere to another company and then kept making Vodka with the same ingredients, in the same distillery, with the same people. They decided to dispense with the glitzy expensive bottle and price the Vodka at an everyday price point. In this way they can sell larger volume with lower overhead. Makes perfect business sense eh, but that’s not the real story here.
The real story is that Sobieski is debunking Vodka myths by shouting them from the rooftops. Bucking a trend they helped to start. They are telling the world what industry professionals have always known and what the premium brands don’t want you to know. Things like...distilling vodka a billion times doesn’t necessarily make it any better than a Vodka distilled once. That there are plenty of Vodkas worth $15 being sold for $40. That branding and bottles only makes your Vodka, one of the least expensive spirits to make, a lot more expensive. That really good Vodka can be had for very reasonable prices and that in many cases people are merely buying branding!
All of this should come as no big shock to any one, though it will, because over the years less expensive brands have beaten the super expensive stuff in taste tests time and time again. One of the prime time expose TV shows did a program about premium Vodkas a while back explaining all of this. Many watched, but few believed. The New York Times reported the same in their blind tasting…
“After the 21 vodkas were sipped and the results compiled, the Smirnoff was our hands-down favorite….ahead of many other names that are no doubt of higher status in stylish bars and lounges. Some of those names did not even make our Top 10. Grey Goose from France, one of the most popular vodkas, was felt to lack balance and seemed to have more than a touch of sweetness. Ketel One from the Netherlands, another top name, was felt to be routine and sharp…”
So what’s the future of high priced Vodka? Will people finally stop buying bottles rather than the booze inside? Or is slick marketing and trendy dance club culture too much for America to resist? The truth is that with classic cocktail culture returning there are already signs of the beginning of the end for this trend. Many of the most acclaimed cocktail bars in America aren’t even serving Vodka anymore in part to tell people how ridiculous the trend has become. More and more people are realizing the Emperor is naked. I can’t help but think the next decade bodes poorly for super premium Vodkas, but as H.L. Menken said "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public" and I venture to say you could replace the word taste with intelligence and still be correct.
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