Sunday, August 24, 2008
Food, "Behind the Bar"

From Russia with love

New Atlanta company brings vodkas to United States

By Hope S. Philbrick

A new Atlanta-based company is introducing two Russian vodkas to America: White Birch, made with birch essence, and Old Russian. Both are made of wheat and rye, distilled just three times, filtered and blended by master blenders. To learn more, The Sunday Paper recently talked to Pottsdam Import & Export Inc.’s Bob Ridgeway, president, CEO and director of sales, and Al Myers, vice president, COO, director of operations and general counsel.

Q What’s the story behind Pottsdam Import & Export?
BOB: Eight years ago, I went to Russia and started talking to distilleries—I ended up going to Russia 13 more times to find an appropriate distillery to work with. I’ve been to most distilleries in Moscow and the Golden Rings (or Moscow suburbs), which is about 100 square miles. Most of the distilleries won’t let you go back where they’re doing production; they’ll only let you go to the quality control area, where they wear white jackets and everything is disinfected. My translator and I went to a producer on the Black Sea and found a beautiful, No. 1 facility with American engineering and Italian construction that produces very good product. We entered into a contractual situation for them to produce two products for us: White Birch, rated 93 by the Beverage Tasting Institute, and Old Russian, rated 88. We have a killer product at a competitive price.

AL: We try to be a fun experience for everyone involved in our business, from supplier to buyer to distributor to point of sale (restaurant or retailer) and especially of course to our drinker. We try to bring healthy, wholesome images to our product to have them look and feel very positive and very fresh; we’re not trying to sell the vodka based on sex, material acquisition or inquisitiveness so much as create mystique about a vodka that tastes different and exceptionally good and that you can drink straight.

No sex and yet there are “White Birch Girls.” What’s that about?
AL: The White Birch Girls are trusted brand ambassadors who bring a youthful spirit and knowledge to the product, helping promote it while spreading good cheer. We’re working on debuting the White Birch Boys next year. There’s room for beautiful people to help give a young identity to a product without turning it into an overt sexual reference. We’re trying to create a vodka experience for everyone in the market. We have parties and promotions that feature a Russian theme, Russian food and Russian traditions.

How are White Birch and Old Russian different?
AL: White Birch has a smooth taste we tend to think people who don’t like harsh tastes are going to prefer—and, in fact, a lot of people tell us they never knew you could drink vodka straight until they tasted White Birch. Old Russian tastes as good and as smooth, but is a bit more fiery.

BOB: White Birch is the fastest-growing premium vodka in Russia. It’s been in existence 10 years. Old Russian is an older product that’s nationally distributed in Russia.

What’s the challenge of importing these vodkas?
AL: The challenges are extensive, especially for a small local company. There’s a lot of regulatory compliance, licensing, permitting, testing, analysis, vetting and marketing analysis that we’ve been doing as we’ve gone along. It’s taken five years to get to where we are today. What makes it new and novel is that we’re based in Atlanta and are introducing one of the highest-rated vodkas in the world to America.

BOB: We were looking for something that would be a consistently good product, good quality control, produced on a regular basis and with honesty. They have kept their word, never lied to me. I’ve seen the complete factory and you can eat off the floors—it’s that clean!

AL: A lot of vodkas claim they’re Russian because they have Russian-sounding names, but when you investigate, you may find that the wheat is harvested in Russia, but the vodka is distilled in New Jersey. With ours, everything is done in Russia. We’re not the only one, but we’re 100 percent authentic. SP
For more information, visit www.1147vodka.com. There’s also a blog at www.1147vodka.com/blog and a Facebook group.