Founded by Pyotr Arsenjevitch Smirnov under the name PA Smirnoff in 1864, the distillery used a brand new charcoal filtration process as well as pioneering newspaper advertisements combined with charitable donations to the church to stop any vodka-shaming sermons. These techniques helped secure the majority of the Moscow market until the 1917 October Revolution when the Smirnov family were forced into exile, having to re-establish the factory first in Constantinople and then in modern day Ukraine. In the 1930s, Vladimir Smirnov sold the right to begin production of the vodka in North America to Rudolph Kunett.

After the Berlin Wall fell, Soviet soldiers were paid in hard currency and Western goods filtered into the East, it was ironically the Russian-born but American-made variety of Smirnoff that became hugely popular as it is today across the world.

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Nutcracker Bottle!!