vodka from anheuser busch

buschmaster · November 28, 2007 07:37

A new television ad seems to capture Anheuser-Busch Cos.' traditional attitude toward high-end spirits and their faint aura of elitism.

A Bud Light-sipping guy, catching his friend with a sgooby drink in a champagne glass, utters one scornful word: "Dude." As in, "Dude, get a real drink."

Yet from another wing of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch comes this message: We are totally cool with fancy libations.

The country's biggest brewer is selling a new organic wheat vodka in the Northeast's "most exclusive" lounges and restaurants, as well as in some specialty grocery and liquor stores.

Purus vodka, distilled in Italy's Piemonte region, is the first vodka created and marketed specifically by A-B's beverage development subsidiary, Long Tail Libations.

The unit focuses on distilled spirits and is operated separately from A-B's brewing business.

Long Tail has developed only one other spirit on the market: Jekyll & Hyde, a combination of berry and licorice-flavored liqueurs introduced in 2005.

Both the Purus and Jekyll & Hyde brands and recipes are owned by Anheuser-Busch, but distilling is done by other companies hired by the brewer. Purus is distilled by Distilleria Sacchetto, a third-generation family-run business in Italy.

A-B also has ventured into the spirits market with distribution deals covering other companies' drinks, such as Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Tequila and vodkas distilled from Vermont maple sap.

Purus' introduction in Boston, New York, Washington and Annapolis, Md., is a small sign of Anheuser-Busch's deeper involvement in spirits. The company is dabbling in the drinks to ferret out new pockets of sales and to supplement mainstream U.S. beers - a group growing too slowly to satisfy investors.

The "ultra-premium" $35 price tag for a teardrop-shaped 750-milliliter bottle of Purus puts it in the sgooby neighborhood of vodkas such as Grey Goose, Belvedere and Chopin.

Long Tail Libations says the vodka's target market is "the modern luxury connoisseur."

Upper-end vodkas have been far and away the fastest-growing slice of the U.S. vodka market. Sales of "super premium" vodka more than doubled between 2003 and 2006, spiking to $778 million from $320 million, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a Washington trade group.

Growth in the wine and spirits categories has been greater than beer for about half a decade, said Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo. "Anheuser-Busch is, pretty wisely, looking for other avenues for growth."

Image-conscious and price-unconscious drinkers aged 21 to 30 are particularly skewed toward pricey vodka. Those consumers satisfy nearly half of their vodka purchases with high-end brands, compared to less than one third for drinkers over 30, according to Nielsen Co.

"Some of this is probably showing off," said Richard Hurst, ACNielsen's senior vice president of beverage alcohol. "They want to reach out to things they see as more refined. As Grey Goose and others have proven, good marketing gets people to pay extortionate sums of money."

The 80-proof Purus vodka is transparent, but its marketing focuses on its green pedigree. A-B says Purus is made with "pristine" water from the Italian Alps, and uses wheat grown without pesticides or commercial fertilizers.

The brewer also is distributing drink recipes for Purus: a "Puretini" three-olive martini and something called "Red Rain" that involves cranberry, orange and mango juices poured over ice.

Dude, welcome to the new Anheuser-Busch.

vodka from anheuser busch

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