• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 29, 2007

Stolichnaya Vodka is getting into the hotel business. Sort of. Aiming to shake up its venerable brand, the best-selling Russian vodka plans to open a temporary hotel in a series of U.S. cities complete with a concierge and bar, a GreenBliss Eco Spa and a handful of “guest rooms” inspired by Stoli vodka flavors.

Stoli distributor Pernod-Ricard is also devoting the brand’s entire Internet ad budget, amounting to several million dollars, to the Stoli Hotel effort. Stolihotel.com provides the proletariat with a virtual tour of the premises —modeled on the Hotel Moskva found on the Stoli label — and its luxury amenities and forthcoming events.

The extravagant promotion kicked off in May with the launch of a Stoli Hotel in Los Angeles and moves on for month-long stops in cities including New York, Chicago and Miami in the coming months.

With a myriad of premium vodkas crowding the market, Stoli has been striving to update its Cold War era image with five different ad campaigns in as many years. Legacy Marketing Partners, the brand’s event-marketing agency, dreamed up the hotel concept as a way to create buzz and evoke hotel bar cocktail culture. For L.A., the agency had lined up 15 invitation-only events with hosts ranging from Hugh Hefner to celebrity DJs.