It's Platte back with another Value Spirit series video. Today the particular spirit is Smirnoff vodka. I think Smirnoff vodka when I start this series is one of the first spirits I thought about. I think it exemplifies the concept of a value spirit. Not just that it's cheap but that's a good value that it's a good spirit at the right price. Smirnoff is a vodka brand under the Diagio portfolio. Diagio is one of those major alcoholic beverage conglomerates similar to Beam Suntory what have you the old brown form of stuff like that. It's distributed to over 130 countries worldwide so you can find it pretty much everywhere. It's actually produced in several different countries almost eight or nine UK Brazil even Mongolia and of course here in the US where the modern version of the company was first started. Smirnoff spent about a decade as he ruled most popular or high-selling spirit pretty much from 06 to 2015. Again that kind of makes sense because vodka's pretty neutral pretty worldwide. Spirit's pretty versatile too in the Kraft Cautéal world. It was finally passed in 2016 by officers choice. Not real popular here in the US but is a whiskey-produced in India and that makes sense because certainly world's population hubs in Asia and between India and China they both love the brown spirits more than the white spirits so that kind of makes sense too but Smirnoff had an incredible run and I think it's still number two as far as sales worldwide. A little bit on the background of the company the current iteration of the company like it was a US company but the printer sisters date all over back to 1864 in Moscow and it's a name PA Smirnoff. Smirnoff spilt with a V not 2Fs where I gather that is a French spilling of the name or that that was why the name was eventually changed. Anyway PA started the company in 1864 but PA was kind of a pioneer in the business not just for starting the earlier version of this brand but he also in 1870s became a pioneer in the Charco filtration process which again is huge for vodka because that's one of the quality markers for vodka is cleanliness and purity so the Charco filtration was huge. Also PA was a pretty savvy marketer was one of the first to utilize newspaper ads and also major charitable contributions. From what I gather and I was kind of surprised to read this I guess in the 1870s showing Russia there was an anti-vodka movement led by the orthodox church there. PA utilized the press but also utilized major charitable contributions to certain people that might have simmered down the water but I was fascinated to think that even Russia went through that kind of. I thought the US was the only one that kind of fell for that prohibition silliness but I guess everybody else did too at some point in time. Unfortunately for PA in Smirnoff family in 1904 these are nationalized. Vodka production and took the distillery from the family. The family hung around for a little bit but eventually left Russia after the October Revolution and the fall of the Tsar. PA's son Vladimir though did try to revive the brand first in Istanbul Turkey then Ukraine and finally in Paris where I believe the spelling of the name then switched to the double F from the fee. It was a few years later that the current version of the company came about Vladimir ended up selling the North American rights to Joe Man named Rudolph Kuhnet. The Rudolph Kuhnet actually had prior relations to the Smirnoff family from a gather Kuhnet's family had sold the Smirnoffs grain back in the Moscow day so there was a connection there and Vladimir felt comfortable with Rudolph taking the name and taking the brand to North America and the rest they say his history of Kuhnet eventually got bought out and rolled over a couple times to eventually ended up in the Igeos hands. Now like I said I think Smirnoff is a perfect example of a value brand and one of the perfect ways to point this out is in these videos I always point out different articles of water that talk about you know how great this spirit is or what a value spirit and it's the one of the first articles I found was on something called the Spruce Eats it's a website and they claim that Smirnoff is the best cheap vodka for Moscow meals well if you think about it that's kind of how most people consume vodka these days and things like Moscow meals or a vodka tonic or some kind of apple teeny kind of cocktail not just straight vodka there's very few people drinking just straight vodka martinis and even less drinking vodka martinis a little bit of remove but there's not a lot of that anymore it's generally in some kind of mixture well if you're going to make the Moscow meal the ginger beer which has a strong taste and then fresh lime which you want to use fresh lime because that flavor really pops too why are you overspending for vodka to put in there you just want a good clean vodka and that's a Smirnoff a couple other accolades vine pair ranks this one of their best cheap vokas under $20 spy.com lists this one of their top 10 cheap vokas and finally probably the story or probably the outlet that kind of broke Smirnoff as far as the whole value serious thing or value spirit thing is ABC news didn't expose back in 2009 if you remember 2009 I know out here in Vegas the whole nightclub thing was booming the bottle service thing was just getting off the ground states were kind of changing their legalization on that and the ultimate premium vodka is really popping up great goose, kettle one, jibalva deers and I know out here people paying four or five hundred bucks for a bottle of goose that I could have bought at the liquor store for $30 but the club you're gonna overspend. Well ABC didn't expose and did did kind of blind taste test with those ultra-peamian vokas and Smirnoff was kind of their control just regular vodka and Smirnoff hung well with all the big boys I think great goose actually came in last as far as you know how I got ranks by by the people but people really couldn't tell the difference and again especially the club thing what everybody was doing then again no one was making vodka more teenies with a splash of removed you know the bottle service thing they bring you the bottle they bring you bucket ice and all these mixers and a lot of times it was red bull well if you don't put vodka in that rot guts stuff you know again why overpay you just want something clean and then Smirnoff real quick the bottle tells the story on Smirnoff the front label tells us it's 10 times filtered again that's what what's running just a good clean spirit if you saw ever saw my vodka video in the vodka series I talked about how by law it's supposed to be odorless color less tasteless and that the quality the thing that really denotes quality is how clean it is thus less flavor so why you paying you know paying too much for supposed flavor also to I do have to note something and this something I did not know about Smirnoff I don't know if it's something that's just changed or whatever but I didn't notice in the back of the bottle on reading the label said made with premium grains alright everybody right from the cast and that but I noted that it was gluten free so I could throw out several grains in and basically found out it's made with corn similar to teetos now where the the difference may be between the two is teetos is only produced here in the states and cheerly the corn we get in the states called I think it's food grade corn or are specific breed of corn the major add companies here have bred that where Smirnoff being distilled in places like Mongolia UK Brazil they have access to corn and commercial grain corn but maybe not the exact same strain of corn so it could be a little just a slight difference but corn gluten-free highly filtered again similar to teetos and teetos again another brand that I again for the dollar you know if you're gonna have Moscow meals or Vector Red Bulls don't pay 3040 plus bucks for goose and Belvedere and crystal skull and all those high invocates Smirnoff for teetos way to go so and now for that let's try a little Smirnoff those you may be wondering I I want to say I spent like 899 or something for this little pint I've got enough you tell them back I got an avocate so I didn't need a ton more vodka but I think it's only like 899 for that I think the 750 might have came in 1199 so it's getting very reasonable well under $20 for it so all right does have a little sweetness on the nose let's give it a try that definitely does have that corn sweetness I'm it might have it even more the teetos which kind of surprised me that's not bad smooth vodka go down easy yeah I'm really kind of surprised by the sweetness I'm really getting off that I've been a hundred years since I had just a shot at Smirnoff I'm sure I've had a Smirnoff vodka tonic or you know some kind of wacky drink with Smirnoff but I don't think I've had a shot of Smirnoff in a while and surprisingly sweet but it's still clean nice easy finish not harsh again if I want to throw this in a red bowl or vodka tonic it works as well as any well I hope you like this video if you did please subscribe down below also please like the video because it lets you tube know we're putting out good content if you need questions comments concerns or value spirits do you like to suggest please leave them in the comments section or you can always contact me on the twitter page until next time bottoms up