This weekend as the cold really starts to bite in Moscow, I had the opportunity to go to the Kristall №1 Distillery and Museum for a tour and tasting. Both the tour and tasting were fascinating, even with the tasting of 8 different straight vodka starting at midday, which made the first couple a little challenging.
The Kristall distillery has a lot of interesting history which the museum explained. At the beginning of the 20th century when Russia was transferring all production of vodka to public ownership, to guarantee the quality (and no doubt support the public purse) the Kristall distillery in Moscow (originally founded as Moscow State Wine Warehouse №1), was founded as the first state sanctioned distillery. This gave it the name №1. During the second world war the factory started producing Molotov Cocktails to fit into specially built launchers to attack marauding German tanks. Both the Molotov Cocktails and the launchers were on display in the museum as well as vodka in space packaging, which was provided to Russian cosmonauts.
The Kristall brand which I was most familiar with was Stolichnaya. It was explained that when Stolichnaya started exporting to the US, they agreed a distribution agreement with Pepsi, distributing each other’s products in their respective countries. As Americans were not drinking vodka straight and using it in cocktails, the strength of Stolichnaya for export was increased to 50% abv, so people could taste it. Having tasted a range of their vodkas I would suggest that Stolichnaya Sever Special Soft is the best. It contains a gram of sugar (per bottle) and a subtle taste of honey to take some of the bitterness away.
Robin Bell 