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Pyotr Smirnov, a nearly illiterate serf, went to Moscow in the late 19th century and used ingenious marketing to build the Smirnov vodka brand. Squabbling heirs and the Bolshevik Revolution buried the brand until after World War II, when a visionary marketer outside the family devised a plan to resurrect the high-quality vodka.

The story of the brand comes alive in a new book by Linda Himelstein, who became interested with the story of the rise and demise of Smirnov when she was a writer for BusinessWeek magazine during the 1990s and felt compelled to unravel the family's secrets based on material in the former Soviet Union. "Once this little corner of 19th-century Russia grabbed me, I was lost to it," she says.

The result is The King of Vodka: The Story of Pyotr Smirnov and the Upheaval of an Empire (HarperCollins, 416 pages, $29.99). "Himelstein makes Russian history and even current politics come alive," writes Steve Weinberg in a very positive review.

 

Read the whole story at USA Today.

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