Tags: beverage (16 pics) Smirnoff is a brand of vodka now owned and produced by the British company Diageo. The Smirnoff brand began with a vodka distillery founded in Moscow by Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov (1831-1898), the son of illiterate Russian peasants. It is now distributed in 130 countries. Smirnoff products include vodka, flavored vodka, and malt beverages. In Mar. 2006 (6 years ago), Diageo North America claimed that Smirnoff vodka was the best-selling distilled spirit brand in the world. History Pyotr Smirnov founded his vodka distillery in Moscow in the 1860 (152 years ago) under the trading name of PA Smirnoff, pioneering charcoal filtration in the 1870s, and becoming the first to utilize newspaper ads along with charitable contributions to the clergy to stifle anti-vodka sermons, capturing two-thirds of the Moscow market by 1886 (126 years ago). His brand was reportedly the tsar's favorite. When he died, he was succeeded by his third son Vladimir Smirnov (? - 1939 (73 years ago)). The company flourished and produced more than 4 million cases of vodka per year. During the Oct. Revolution, the distillery was confiscated and the family had to flee. Vladimir Smirnov re-established the factory in 1920 (92 years ago) in Istanbul. Four years later he moved to Lwów (formerly Poland, now Lviv, Ukraine) and started to sell the vodka under the contemporary French spelling of the name, "Smirnoff". The new product was a success and by the end of 1930 (82 years ago) it was exported to most European countries. An additional distillery was founded in Paris in 1925 (87 years ago). In the 1930 (82 years ago) Vladimir met Rudolph Kunett, a Russian who had emigrated to America in 1920 (92 years ago). The Kunett family had been a supplier of spirits to Smirnoff in Moscow before the Revolution. In 1933 (79 years ago) Vladimir sold Kunett the right to begin producing Smirnoff vodka in North America. However, the business in America was not as successful as Kunett had hoped. In 1938 (74 years ago) Kunett couldn't afford to pay for the necessary sales licenses, and contacted John Martin, president of Heublein, who agreed to buy the rights to Smirnoff.

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