Premium Vodka (700 ml) (New Label)

The recipe that became Stolichnaya emerged from Soviet state laboratories in the late 1930s, with a deliberate mandate to preserve cereal identity rather than chase absolute neutrality — a philosophy encoded in a narrow distillation cut that discards all spirit evaporating below 67.2°C and above 79.0°C. Grain — winter wheat and spring wheat with a minority of rye — is sourced from the Black Earth (Chernozem) region of Tambov, Russia's most fertile agricultural belt, where deep humus-rich soils and a continental climate produce starch-dense grain that carries through to the finished spirit. At Talvis Distillery, Tambov, a continuous five-column rectification system — including a vacuum mash column operating at 60°C with a copper cartridge for sulphur removal — rectifies spirit to 96.3% ABV before tanker transport to Latvijas Balzams, Riga, where artesian well water drawn from 200-metre-deep wells is reverse-osmosis treated before blending. Filtration runs four sequential passes: quartz sand, Russian birch wood charcoal, woven cloth, and a final polish. A post-filtration addition of 1.8 g/L sugar rounds the palate in the classical Russian tradition without perceptible sweetness. What distinguishes Premium from the broader category is this dual-nation, farm-to-bottle chain — grain grown on SPI-owned Chernozem farmland, distilled in Russia, finished in Latvia — a production model no other major vodka brand replicates at this scale.