До свидания (Dasvidania) Stolichnaya

Back when Mr. Putin first sent troops into Ukraine, bars and liquor stores and vodka fans the world over responded by pouring vodka from Russia down the drain. But there are lots of vodka brands with Russian sounding names that come from other places, including Smirnoff:

Smirnoff is named after Vladimir Smirnoff who fled from Russia during the country’s revolution, but it’s owned by British company Diageo (ticker: DEO) and is made in the U.S., Canada, and many other countries—but not Russia.

Now on Brumby Road we drink Stolichnaya, and after I did a little research I concluded that I wasn’t hurting Ukraine by doing so. You can read about what I learned here:

Vodka Verity

But apparently the people who own the brand Stolichnaya decided that the name was too ‘Russian’ sounding and was hurting sales, Besides, most people have trouble pronouncing ‘Stolichnaya’ although since Stoker studied Russian in high school and college (useful back in the cold war days) she never had any problem. She can even read the Cyrillic characters in the title of this blog.

Most pub patrons shortened the name to ‘Stoli’ when ordering. In fact, when I would ask for “two Stolichnaya on the rocks with a twist” I would sometimes get blank looks until I shortened my order to ‘Stoli’.

So in an effort to appear less Russian, Stolichnaya has been rebranded, kind of. Here is the evolution of the label:

On the right is the pre-war version where the diminutive form is nowhere to be seen. The middle bottle retains the full name on the upper part, but uses Stoli across the very 1930’s looking vodka factory drawing. On the left is our most recent purchase, where the name Stolichnaya is completely absent. Dasvidania Stolichnaya, hello Stoli! Welcome to Brumby Road!