Stolichnaya Citrus (700 ml)

When Stolichnaya launched the world's first citrus-flavoured vodka in 1986, it was not following a trend — it was creating one, building on a flavoured-spirit tradition the brand had pioneered since 1962 with Pertsovka and Okhotnichya. That institutional confidence in flavour is the context for Stolichnaya Citrus. The base spirit is built from winter and spring wheat with a minority rye component, grown on Black Earth (Chernozem) farmland in Tambov, Russia — some of the most fertile agricultural land on earth, yielding grain with a faint toasty cereal character that survives rectification. Distillation at Talvis Distillery, Tambov employs a five-column continuous rectification system, with a deliberate narrow cut — discarding all spirit outside the 67.2°C–79.0°C window — to preserve subtle wheat-derived texture rather than strip to full neutrality. The spirit is then transported by tanker train to Latvijas Balzams, Riga, where it is blended with water drawn from 200-metre artesian wells (reverse-osmosis treated) and passed through four sequential filtrations: quartz sand, Russian birch charcoal, woven cloth, and a final polish. What distinguishes Stolichnaya Citrus within the flavoured vodka category is precisely this provenance: the citrus character sits over a grain base with genuine textural identity — not the blank-canvas neutral spirit most competitors use — giving the flavouring something to interact with rather than simply coat.