Absolut History

I didn't realize that Absolut vodka had a real history. From a story in the Telegraph:

Swedish vodka has its roots in the 15th century when the country's inhabitants first started distilling spirits called "bränvin", which literally translated means "burnt wine".

Originally used in medicine and for making gunpowder, the Swedes soon cottoned on to vodka's other powers and by the 17th century the spirit had established itself at the national drink of choice.

The birth of Absolut Vodka came 200-odd years later when Lars Olsson Smith - known as "The King of Vodka" - introduced a drink in 1879 called Absolut Rent Bränvin or Absolute Pure Vodka.

A keen entrepreneur, Smith got round Stockholm's monopoly on distilled spirits by offering the City's inhabitants a free shuttle boat service to a neighbouring island where he set up a shop to sell Absolut Vodka.

The brand was eventually nationalised in 1917 following a clampdown in the prohibition era and is today owned by Vin & Sprit which produces around 9m cases of the drink each year. V&S also owns a slew of other global and local brands including Plymouth gin, Cruzan rum and Luksusova vodka.

If you don't pay attention to industry news (it's kinda boring, so don't feel bad), you might not know that Absolut's parent company Vin & Sprit (V&S) is for sale. Because the company is pretty ginormous, only the big players like Diageo and Bacardi can bid for it, though there was talk about some smaller companies selling off part of their business in order to buy it.

Another issue is that the purchaser must take Absolut as well as the other brands, and they want to ensure that the other brands don't get dumped afterwards. V&S owns several regional brands of aquavit, bitters, a Finnish peppermint liqueur, and some wines. I think there's a justified fear that a major international spirits company based in England wouldn't be interested in selling a product that is only big in Finland, but I'm not sure how they can guarantee that these brands won't be orphaned after purchase.

Though this may not have much of an effect on American consumers I think it's an important study on the danger of too few huge spirit companies dominating the international market and homogenizing offerings to the lowest common denominator (vodka), possibly folding small regional brands that are insignificant to their bottom line.

What would be cool instead would be if these huge companies used their international distribution systems to make those little brands only sold in Finland available in other parts of the world. Wishful thinking, I guess.

Labels: industry_news, vodka

Comments

[martin]

Diageo backed out as a buyer today.