Vodka,a luxury good

From The International Herald Tribune
Paris, November 23, 2007

Vodka repackaged and marketed as a luxury good

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/16/style/rgiftvoda.php

Vodka takes its very name from the diminutive of the Russian word for water, voda. Traditionally popular as a versatile cocktail mixer, valued mainly for a pure absence of flavor, it is being reinvented for a new in crowd of drinkers as a luxury spirit to rival vintage cognacs and champagnes. A tipple of choice for people who drink Perrier at power lunches.

"Vodka has an understated elegance," said Lavinia Schimmelpenninck, the artistic director of an online luxury shopping guide, myprestigium.com. "It's an easy drink - smooth, light - but retains a definitive and powerful kick."

"Consumers of luxury goods want to purchase not only the product but also the experience, the impression and the image" said Michal Smolana, acting chief executive of Transborder Marketing, a U.S. company formed last year "to create, develop and market unique imported luxury products to sophisticated consumers throughout the world," as the company's introductory press release said.

Transborder's first product is Diaka, a rye-based Polish vodka produced using a patented diamond filtration process that the company says uses nearly 100 cut diamonds, of as much as one carat in size. Diaka vodka is expected to hit the market next year, at a planned retail price of $100 per Swarovzki crystal-encrusted bottle.

Diaka, a cocktail of a name with two ingredients, diamond and vodka, is produced by the Polish company Polmos Siedlce, which also makes a potato-based Chopin Vodka.

In a similar spirit, Roberto Cavalli vodka, distilled from Italian grain and Italian alpine spring water, is filtered through layers of crushed Carrara marble before hitting the retail shelves in a graceful Lalique-style bottle designed by the Italian high-fashion designer, at a price of €60, or $90.

"I want there to be fun in everything that I do. I love to design, and sophistication, I like the purity of vodka, especially my vodka," Cavalli said.

Happily for drinkers of these luxury vodkas, the attention paid to packaging and marketing seems to be matched by that paid to the product.

Mark Holmes, founder and chief executive of The Brand Distillery, in London, says that he started researching Polish vodka recipes and traditions in the early '90s, before bringing the company's U'Luvka brand to market in May 2005. The vodka is distilled in Poland from a blended mash containing 50 percent rye, 25 percent wheat and 25 percent barley.

"I wanted to take the different elements of these grains and meld them together to get a complexity of flavor that lingers on the palate," Holmes said.

The result is a vodka with silken, subtle flavors that, unlike most, can be served at room temperature rather than chilled and can be drunk as a digestive as well as in a martini or a mixer.

The subtlety of the spirit extends to the marketing, with the name barely discernable on the bottle, which features an alchemical emblem referencing entwined male and female bodies, dancing together in a celebration of life.

"It is all about nobility and integrity, that is why we created the brand, to make a great spirit that has a luxury inside and out," Holmes said. "The underpinning of the brand is a dance with life, a celebration, an embodiment of friendship, which is part of the ritual of a toast in Poland.

"The elements of the packaging reflect the quality of the liquid - the design of the bottle is male and female friendly, sensual and versatile."

U'Luvka's designer bottle has a long, sinuous curved neck - a useful design as it fits neatly into the hand of a bartender - and comes in three sizes: a miniature (10 centiliters) at €15; the 70-centiliter signature bottle at €60; and a magnum (175 centiliters) at €120.

An U'Luvka "Friendship, Love and Pleasure" gift set, at €85, offers a 70-centiliter bottle, two shot glasses and a cocktail book.

For those seeking a richer, warmer glow of decadence, the French spirits company Louis Royer, traditionally producers of cognac, wanted to position themselves in a new market. "Gold is appreciated universally" said Anais Egre of Louis Royer, and through its U.S. importer Shaw-Ross International, in Miami, they introduced another luxury vodka to the U.S. market in September. Gold Flakes Supreme contains shavings of 24-karat gold inside each 75-centiliter bottle.

Priced at $60, the gold-infused vodka "will find its place with connoisseurs and people who appreciate the finer things" said Rod Simmons, marketing director for Shaw Ross.