Stolichnaya Orange (700 ml)

In 1986, Stolichnaya released the world's first commercially produced citrus-flavoured vodka — not as a trend-chaser but as a direct extension of the brand's 1962 flavoured-spirit programme that had already pioneered pepper and honey-herb expressions. That heritage positions Stolichnaya Orange as the category's originator, not an imitator. The base spirit is built from winter and spring wheat with a minority proportion of rye, all grown on Black Earth (Chernozem) farmland in Tambov, Russia — some of it on SPI Group's own Raduga farm — where deep, iron-rich soil and continental climate produce grain with a faint toasty character that survives even high-rectification distillation. Distillation runs through a continuous five-column rectification system at Talvis Distillery; the 'narrow cut' philosophy discards all spirit evaporating below 67.2°C and above 79.0°C, preserving cereal texture rather than chasing full neutrality. The rectified spirit travels by tanker train to Latvijas Balzams in Riga — a facility built in 1900 by Tsarist order — where it is blended with water drawn from 200-metre artesian wells, treated by reverse osmosis, and passed through four sequential filtration stages: quartz sand, Russian birch-wood charcoal, woven cloth, and a final polish. What distinguishes this expression within the flavoured-vodka segment is that the grain backbone — that faint peppery rye finish and toasty wheat note — remains perceptible beneath the orange flavouring, giving structural contrast that most neutral-spirit-based citrus vodkas lack. Bottled at 40% ABV with a trace sugar addition rounding the palate in the classic Russian tradition.