How America Fell in Love With Vodka

The Russian Revolution was some 20 years before American drinkers embraced vodka. Smirnoff vodka, known locally as Smirnov, was
among the uppermost of top-shelf brands, and the preferred drink of the court of Czar Alexander III. But it was a poor credential for a
socialist revolution, and the only member of the Smirnov family to escape Moscow was Vladimir Smirnov. In France, he struggled to sell
vodka in a land of wine and cognac. Then, in 1925, the destitute Smirnov met Rudolph P. Kunett, born Kunettchenskiy, a young distiller who
fled the revolution to America. For 54,000 francs – around $50,000 in today’s
money – he sold Kunett the exclusive rights to make and sell Smirnoff vodka in
the United States and Canada.
Perhaps Kunett believed that Prohibition was on its way out, and this investment
was therefore a foolproof plan. Instead, it continued for another nine years,
putting the kibosh on any swift financial gains. In March 1934, after the ban on
booze had been lifted, Kunett opened the country’s first domestic vodka
distillery, in Bethel, Connecticut, and waited for the cash to roll in as the bottles
rolled out. He would be waiting a while. Americans did not drink vodka, and the
ritzy Smirnoff name was meaningless to prospective drinkers. After a 13-year-
ban, Americans seemed more interested in old favorites such as whiskey, gin,
and beer. In his first year, Kunett sold just 1,200 cases, many of which went to
Russian and Polish migrants living in the area.
Eventually, Kunett went bankrupt. In 1938, he attempted to sell the business to
food and drinks distributor GF Heublein & Bros. John Martin offered him a deal:
He would buy the rights and Kunett’s equipment, give him a job, and offer him
and his stockholders five percent of royalties on every Smirnoff bottle sold for
the next decade. (Kunett anticipated that these royalties would come to
nothing.)
At first, sales stayed flat. It’s not hard to imagine why. Vodka is pure grain
alcohol mixed with water and filtered through charcoal. It is a literally a neutral
spirit, with any character-giving oils or compounds stripped out. The resulting
flavor may be sterile, even antiseptic, which is a tough sales pitch, especially if
you’re encouraging people to drink it on its own. But if Heublein could make it
work, the ease and relative inexpense of producing the spirit would spell healthy
profit margins.
Then, Martin noticed an unusual uptick of sales in Columbia, South Carolina.
What had happened was a curious fusion of advertising savvy and plain luck.
Heublein had, according to its own lore, bottled the vodka even before they had
the right caps for it. Tops were labeled “whiskey” instead of “vodka.” The South
Carolina distributor, Martin told the Hartford Times, had capitalized on this mix-
up with a streamer that read: “Smirnoff White Whiskey – No Smell, No Taste.”
While whiskey hovered on your breath, vodka left no trace, which eventually
inspired the “Smirnoff Leaves You Breathless” campaign.
Cocktails were becoming popular, and vodka proved a useful inclusion. The Screwdriver mixed orange juice and vodka, the Bloody Mary
tomato juice and vodka, the Ice Pick iced tea and vodka. The Bull Shot, now all but forgotten, involved warmed, spiced beef broth and
vodka.
Most important of all was the Moscow Mule, which Martin and Kunett dreamed up. The drink first made an appearance in a Los Angeles
restaurant called the Cock’n Bull in 1940. The owner, Jack Morgan, had a great deal of homemade ginger beer he was trying to shift
(Americans preferred ginger ale). His girlfriend, Ozeline Schmidt, who Martin described as a “great, big, beautiful, buxom woman,” was the
heiress of a copper factory struggling to sell its products. Kunett, now Smirnoff’s Advertising Manager, met with Morgan, Martin, and Schmidt
to create a drink that combined ginger beer and Smirnoff vodka. In the Moscow Mule, a copyrighted drink, these were mixed together with
lime juice and served with a squeeze of lime in a copper mug.
Throughout the Second World War, Heublein stopped producing Smirnoff. Then, in 1946, with Martin at the helm, they began aggressively
promoting the cocktail, supplying bars across the country with Moscow Mule signage and instruction. The cocktail became famous across
America. “The drink has caught on rapidly,” the New York Times reported in 1954, “and is now firmly entrenched.” Americans weren’t
drinking significantly more alcohol – national liquor consumption increased by about six percent in 1953 – but they were drinking much,
much more vodka. Production rose 47 percent, and the Moscow Mule was a major factor.
Vodka also benefited from its popularity in Hollywood, where, in an effort to maintain a squeaky-clean reputation, alcohol was banned in
many contracts. An “It Takes Your Breath Away” slogan sold especially well to people who did not want to be caught drinking on or off the
job. The connection helped glamorize vodka – at a party thrown by Joan Crawford, in 1947, only vodka and champagne were served.
Smirnoff continued to dominate the market, making up 99.5 percent of domestic production until the 1970s. Given that only around half a
percent of vodka drunk in the United States was imported, Smirnoff was the only vodka most Americans knew.
A potentially challenge, however, was the Cold War, which incited anti-Russian sentiment. Protests were common, and the New York Daily
News, even if it didn’t have that fabled barman’s banner on the front page, often featured stories about tea totaling groups upset about
Russian drinks. To counteract this, advertisers stressed the Imperial Russian connection over Red Russian connotations. Smirnoff’s
advertising campaigns featured British or American celebrities – most James Bond films after 1962 showed the avowed enemy of Soviet
Russia ordering vodka martinis. It was a global drink, not a Russian one, and even the most patriotic of Americans had nothing to worry
about.
By the 1970s, vodka was entrenched in American drinking habits, selling 80.3 million gallons in 1975. Over the following decades, its
popularity would rise (thanks to the famous Absolut advertising campaign designed by Andy Warhol) and fall (as craft cocktails became
more popular) and rise once again (with club kids swigging vodka and Red Bulls). It’s now the highest-selling spirit in the United States.
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