One of the ongoing arguments in taverns and cocktail bars is whether vodka is an appropriate base for the martini. Gin was the original main ingredient from its inception during the speakeasy days, but the desire of one distiller to elevate his spirit into a market titan meant he had to muscle in on the established mindset surrounding that very cocktail. That the man with this goal had already overcome a number of deeply disastrous events meant he was destined for success.
This is how an unknown British movie character exploded the popularity of a Russian product made in the U.S. -- through the magic of Hollywood. But the entire story itself is cinematic in scope and worthy of its own feature-length telling, beginning over 150 years ago.
Heublein, Inc. was one of the major corporations in the country, but it began in the 1860s as a restaurant in Connecticut. Following a company party they were left with a stock of pre-made cocktails, so they began selling off the product in the restaurant. It proved so popular that they began distributing their own version, starting a distillery of their own to create their pre-made Manhattans and other options. This blossomed into a corporate entity, and by the turn of the century the food service-based company began acquiring other food brands as well.
That proved an unforeseen stroke of business genius because Heublein’s primary revenue stream was entirely removed by the arrival of prohibition. The company managed to remain viable on the strength of one of its acquisitions; they were the makers of the hugely popular A-1 Steak Sauce. Later, the company took on Grey Poupon, and Heublein was primed to remain a market force. But coming out of prohibition, the grandson of the founder, John Martin, looked to reestablish the Heublein trademark ready-made cocktail line. There were problems.
Once the 18th Amendment was overridden by the 21st, there were issues in getting the needed whiskey for Heublein’s products. Many distilleries were shuttered, and the few that survived would need a lengthy period to produce and age their product. Also, the marketplace was flooded in the interim 13 years with foreign-made hooch, namely Canadian whiskey and Scotch, so that compounded the scarcity and left only expensive alternatives. But soon a new and local option would arise.
Unclear Fortunes of the Clear Liquor
Amazingly, nearby in Connecticut, a Russian emigre named Rudolph Kunett was working in the cosmetics industry but looking for a business opportunity, and he was stunned to see an offer made in a local newspaper. The famous vodka maker Pyotr Arsenyevitch Smirnov narrowly escaped death during the Russian Revolution, as the government took over private businesses and jailed many owners. Pyotr managed to flee the country, and though he made his vodka in other European nations, he struggled sales-wise. In need of money, he offered up the rights and the recipe to his formerly famous vodka for the American market.
However at the time no one in the States regarded vodka as a viable potable, so he sold his legacy to Kunett for a pittance. Getting into the reinstated spirits game was a sound idea, but vodka just was not considered a drinkable option by the public. Despite starting a distillery, Kunett could not turn a profit, so he approached John Martin and sold him the rights, lingering at Heublein as a limited partner.
Martin’s solution was to tap into his mixed cocktail legacy and after much experimentation they hit upon the Moscow Mule cocktail to get their vodka regarded as a viable spirit choice. As we covered previously, there are variations on this origination, as well as a differing provenance of the marriage of the drink with copper drinkware. But the end result was a level of public acceptance. For a while.
World War 2 unfolded and with it anti-Russian propaganda swept the country, and it was probably inevitable that a drink named after the Communist capital and made with a Russian-sounding spirit would be targeted for boycotts. Martin decided to counter this with a dose of early-day viral marketing. He bought a new device - the Instamatic camera - and provided bartenders with on-the-spot pictures of them mixing the cocktail. This not only countered the public outcry but fostered a demand, and gradually this East Coast promotional effort led to a significant jump in the spirits market share.
But Martin had bigger goals in mind for his clear liquor.
The Connery Job
As the 1960s emerged the “liquid lunch” had become fashionable in business circles, and the martini ruled as the primary option for lubricating businessmen. Martin wanted to get his Smirnoff considered as a desired option and though Heublein was a large practitioner of print media advertising, he needed to have a breakout effort. Martin jumped at a chance in Hollywood to place his product into the hands of a character relatively unknown in the U.S.
Martin worked it out to have Sean Connery ordering or mixing his preferred martini in the very first James Bond film, “Dr. No”. The power of cinema in the day to propel sales via product placement was sublime, and this brilliant gambit made all the difference. The movie was an instant cult hit, becoming a generational franchise and launching the superspy genre, and Smirnoff martinis became a drinking staple as a result.
Vodka sales later surpassed gin, and then went on to be the top-selling liquor in the States, with Smirnoff becoming a global sensation. So the question remains: Did James Bond bastardize a classic cocktail? In a word reflective of that initial film - “No”.
It turns out in the Ian Fleming book series he has his master spy vacillating between gin and vodka, seemingly on a whim. That source material has Bond ordering martinis with vodka 19 times, and with gin 16 times. Then it gets even less concrete. In the debut novel, “Casino Royale,” Fleming has Bond ordering a Vesper – a martini of Fleming's own creation, made with both vodka and gin, and a dose of Lillet.
But in the films, even the spy’s affection for the brand of vodka has proven fluid over the years, and the actors. In subsequent films in the series we have seen Bond drinking his cocktail of choice with differing vodkas, from various countries, such as Grey Goose (“Skyfall”), Finlandia (“Die Another Day”), Belvedere (“Spectre”), and even the Russian-made Stolichnaya (“The Living Daylights,” and others).
And just to add a twist to this concoction, Ian Fleming only once ever mentioned a particular vodka brand in his writing. In “Moonraker” he has Bond drinking Wolfshmidt, a brand then made in Latvia but today owned by Beam Inc. As for the book for “Dr. No”, Fleming only has his spy indicating that he wants his martini made with either Russian or Polish vodka.
However, John Martin persuaded MGM to go with his American distilled vodka on screen, and Bond sipped it in over half a dozen films, entrenching the brand and rocketing vodka to the top of the sales figures. This proves that much like politics, potables can also be downstream of culture.
