Patrons, if Not All Purists, Continue to Consume Flavored Vodkas and Rums

They make up a vast pallette for the cocktail artist. They’re a veritable godsend for mixing an almost unlimited number of classic and modern cocktails, multiplying by quantum leaps in their sipping appeal all the time, and no doubt able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
    Not only have flavored spirits — whether vodka or rum — stolen away the palates of bar, club and lounge patrons over the past decade or so, but what is equally impressive is the fact that they appear to have lost little of the top-selling luster that saw the flavored vodka category alone grow by double digits.
    In the six years since 2000, vodka volumes leaped from 36 million 9-liter cases to 46.2 million in 2005. When added to flavored rum sales that jumped from 17 to 22 million 9-liter cases in the same time period, the total volume represents a small ocean of flavored spirits that have kept the cash registers of untold bars, clubs, lounges, restaurants and resorts in the United States ringing.
    Some spirits industry watchers have questioned whether the consumer yen for flavors can go on indefinitely. But Smirnoff Cocktail Consultant Cameron Bogue is not so sure. “I think the people who say it won’t last are the mixologists who find it passé. Mixologists think they are not cutting edge. Muddled mint is not groundbreaking, but in the public eye, it is still growing,” he says.
    New York ladies out on the town love their Stoli O shots, a drink order to rival the most wanted shooter or cordial in Manhattan. And among rum drinkers, there is a code word of a brand called Cruzan that, repeated in a drink order, lets both bartender and paying customer know that each is clued in.

Stoli Started It
    Ever since Stolichnaya introduced Americans to flavored vodka from Russia back in the 1980s, they have been growing in popularity.
    The success of Stoli flavors soon drew other vodka distillers and brands such as Absolut, Smirnoff, Skyy, Boru, Finlandia and XO into the subcategory and they too have struck gold.
    Companies have been built, or at least have seen their bottom lines bolstered, on the strength of flavored vodka and its continued hold on the public by the numbers. Among the brands and companies that have stepped forward boldly to get a piece of this Rock of Gibraltar are names such as Fris, Pearl, Belvedere, Grey Goose, Players Extreme, VMI, Hamptons, Van Gogh and Indio Spirits, as well as New England’s Three Olives vodka, which recently introduced its Grape and Berry flavors based on research that pointed to the two flavor profiles as the next sales sensation.
    “Out of 10 flavors in the line, Grape and Berry are now No. 2 and No. 3 in volumes,” White Rock Vice President Bill Dabbelt says. “We have hit a home run with our Grape, and the Berry is doing very nicely.”
    Indeed, inquiring owners, operators and bar managers want to know: Just what is it about flavored vodkas that have kept the attention and the palate of fickle patrons?
    “I think the reason is that they add flair to an ordinary cocktail,” says Bogue, whose own career as a cocktail consultant to Smirnoff began when he won a Diaego North America-sponsored cocktail contest to update its famous Moscow Mule. “If you are a vodka soda drinker, and you add a Smirnoff Orange or Smirnoff Raspberry, it becomes a completely different cocktail, and you are going to be happy drinking it.
    “There is a multiplier effect at work in this consumer flavor rationale as well, he says. “It is different than what you are used to drinking, (so) why not have orange one day and black cherry the next?”
    There is a practical element as well to the flavored vodka line that Smirnoff has perfected through a brand Bogue says defines neutral, odorless and colorless vodka spirit, free of underlying nuances.
    “It is a good choice for bars not willing to put in the time to make their own infusions,” Bogue says.
    “If I want a raspberry or orange, it is going to take up to a month to infuse my own vodka, whereas, (I) can pick up a bottle of Smirnoff Black Cherry or Raspberry, and I can start working immediately.”
    Along the way, amid a proliferation of flavors that Bogue estimates to be in the hundreds now, it has become clear that all flavors are not equal in the demand/revenue equation.
    By far, the best sellers are vanilla, raspberry and citrus flavors such as orange, Bogue says.
    Boru Vodka’s Crazzberry flavor, a cranberry/raspberry hybrid, is the sales leader of its flavor extensions which include Orange and Citrus. “Using Crazzberry in a Cosmopolitan turns the standard and hugely popular Cosmo into a signature drink,” says Roseann Sessa, vice president of marketing and public relations for Castle Brands Inc. “Crazzberry is so popular both on- and off-premise that it is the only one of our flavors that we offer in a 1.75-liter size.”

From Sweet to Dry
    While top flavor status may not have changed by overall ranking, Absolut Ambassador Jamie Gordon, who gets paid to follow the flavor trends in bars and clubs around the country, says he has witnessed a shift in flavored vodka sensibilities in his adopted city of New York.
    “I’m seeing a trend toward more savory flavors as opposed to sweet,” he says. “People’s palates are drying a little, partly out of health concerns. Sweet cocktails are not selling like they used to.”
    Like the pureness factor in Smirnoff, Gordon says Absolut has clear success distilled right into the product in the bottle. “All of Absolut’s flavors have no sugar added,” he says. “And lots of flavors are 70 proof, but Absolut is 80 proof.”

Shanghaied
    Rums, too, continue to fuel the flavor parade in a big way, with world-class brands like Bacardi and Malibu and Myers’s quick to establish themselves as subcategory leaders.  Along with some of the more sought-after sipping rums, flavored rums such as the Cruzan line are doing their best to rustle away flavored vodka and gin customers, in the estimation of  bartender Angelo Alban. A bartender in Manhattan for 10 years running and presently working behind the bar at Bice, Alban says he’s known about Cruzan for years.
    “It has been forever a niche,” he says. “Only a very select group of people knew about it. Usually, the people who ask for it know good rum.”
    Alban, who also has a bias toward Malibu Coconut, attributes Cruzan’s success to its extraordinary smoothness. It’s an attribute more out front in Cruzan’s eight flavors, but one that is true of rum in general versus vodka.
    “The thing with flavored rums is that they have less of an alcohol taste than flavored vodka, so as a replacement for vodka, it is great. It is not grain; it’s sugar cane, and that makes it easier to drink and blend. Flavors bring variety, and they give people more options. Rums in the United States have exploded in the last three years. The only thing people knew (before) was Bacardi and Captain Morgan, but now there is an alternative to vodka and gin.”                                            NCB