Stolichnaya: a brand born from the rainbow

Stolichnaya, better known as ‘Stoli’, is a vodka made of wheat and rye grain. The name means “from the capital”. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union the ownership of Stolichnaya has been disputed between the Russian state-owned company FKP Soyuzplodoimport and SPI Group, a private company founded and owned by Russian billionaire Yuri Shefler. The Russian state-owned Stolichnaya is bottled from artesian water from the Russian city of Samara in the Kaliningrad region – for the Russian and the Benelux markets. SPI produces Stolichnaya in Latvia, using Latvian water but alcohol from a distillery in Tambov, Russia. The wheat comes from a Russian region called Radugo, which means Rainbow in Russian. This means the brand was truly ‘born from the rainbow’.

Read my blog for Marketing the Rainbow.