A Franco-American venture is set to launch the world’s most expensive vodka later this year to gain from the phenomenal growth of the spirit, but it faces stiff competition from the likes of Smirnoff, Grey Goose and Absolut.
Small French distiller Peureux and Florida-based Legacy Imports are teaming up to create a French-made vodka called “Perfect 1864” for France and the United States from a nation better known for its wines, champagnes and cognacs.
The two firms aim to surf the wave of vodka’s rapid growth — U.S. sales of the spirit leapt 6 to 8 percent in 2004 compared with flattening growth rates for whiskies — and are backing the launch with a $5 million budget for marketing and promotion.
Peureux Chairman Bernard Baud says the vodka is made from the best French wheat and purest water from the Vosges mountains. The bottles emblazoned with France’s fleur-de-lys will be launched in France from September and in the U.S. from October.
The brand will sell for $40 to $45 a bottle, which Alain-Serge Delaitte, a spokesman for Legacy in France, said “will make ’Perfect’ the most expensive vodka on the market.”
The United States is the world’s fastest-growing vodka market, which is already dominated by Diageo’s Smirnoff, Bacardi’s Grey Goose and Sweden’s Absolut owned by Vin & Sprit. The new top-priced brand may have a tough time.
Vodka, typically distilled from potatoes, turnips, or grain in Russia, Poland and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, accounts for a quarter of all spirits consumed around the world, with 3 billion liters sold each year.
Demand is such that Pernod Ricard’s bid for Britain’s Allied Domecq was partly motivated by a wish to gain distribution for Russia’s Stolichnaya vodka.
Peureux’s Baud aims to sell 1 million bottles of Perfect in the first year and five times that in three to five years.
