I was a the bar the other day, drinking a beer, and looking at the various vodkas with Laura Miner. She noticed that, strangely, both Belvedere and Grey Goose had similar bottles—frosted glass with an image on the back-inside. We wondered who was copying who, so I decided to look them up on Wikipedia. Belvedere is a Polish vodka that’s been around since 1996 and is sold worldwide and advertised as “The Worlds First Super Premium Vodka.” I was a little surprised to find that the idea of “premium vodka” was so new. It turns out Grey Goose has only been around since 1997 and while made in France, was created by an American billionaire (in his 70’s no less, also credited with creating Jägermeister) and is only made in France because of (and I know I’m quoting Wikipedia) “the notion of French manufacturing having an inherent link with high perceived quality.” Not that I should be surprised by that last piece of information, a company basically tricking people into thinking something is of higher quality.
We then noticed a row of Three Olives Vodka and saw that it also had the same frosted glass bottle design. Looking that up, I discovered while being produced in the United Kingdom, it was not sold in the country but rather imported to the United States. Another example of a vodka marketed as from another country (presumably to make it look like higher quality) but is basically made just for consumption in the U. S. Well, I’m not really a big vodka guy myself and I know most companies are trying to trick us into buying their stuff. That being said, I’ve always known Three Olives has a lot of flavored vodkas including cherry, vanilla, raspberry, and (my personal favorite) root beer. But upon looking at their full list of flavors discovered they also have a tomato flavor (ew?) and also one called Rangtang which is the most ridiculous name for a flavor ever. Upon further inspection I discovered this was short for orange and tangerine. And upon even further inspection, it’s something much dirtier (NSFW).
