Original (6 L)

When Sidney Frank commissioned Cognac Maître de Chai François Thibault to build Grey Goose in 1997, Thibault made one non-negotiable decision: no purchased neutral grain spirit, no redistillation of industrial alcohol — full grain-to-glass control, or nothing. That single refusal defines every litre in this six-litre format.

The wheat is blé panifiable supérieur, 100% GMO-free soft winter wheat sown each October across three family-farm cooperatives in Picardy's flat northern plains, harvested after a ten-month growing cycle — nearly double the maturation time of summer wheat — concentrating the cereal's natural sugars and soft anise character before the grain ever reaches the Saint-Quentin mill.

Fermentation runs continuously across six cascading tanks to a ~10% ABV wash; distillation passes through a single five-column still to 96% ABV, preserving measurable wheat character that repeated redistillation would strip. The high-proof spirit travels ~600

km south to Gensac-la-Pallue in the Cognac region, where it is blended with water drawn from a proprietary artesian well 150 m below the facility, naturally filtered through Champagne limestone and demineralised via double reverse osmosis to pH ~5, then given a light cellulose-and-active-carbon polish — not industrial chill-filtration.

The special feature: this is a 6 L format of a vodka that deliberately broke the category's 'tasteless and odourless' orthodoxy, delivering cracked wheat, faint anise, and limestone minerality where peers offer only absence. Over 550 quality checks govern every batch before release.