Grey Goose is first and foremost the story of an American billionaire. Sidney Frank, after the death of his wife, daughter of a mega-rich distiller and spirits merchant, decided to conceive a vodka that would break the boundaries of luxury. To do this, he asked a modest Cognac distiller, anchored in ancestral traditions, to conceive an ultra-posh alcohol for him that would stem from grapes and be aged in wooden barrels. This would prove to be a revolution. The name was taken from the geese that migrate from Europe towards Manhattan every year. To succeed in the exporting and implantation of this French-tinged product, Sidney Frank was the first to pioneer the infiltration strategy, or garnering followers for the brand through stars and influential personalities. In 1998 he slipped a few frosted bottles into the limousines that were transporting the stars to the Oscars in Hollywood. The next day a photo of Sharon Stone with a bottle of Grey Goose in hand was already causing a stir; it didn’t take much more for the brand to be propelled up into the ranks of the most hype beverage of the moment. In 2004, Bacardi took over the Grey Goose label. The primary ingredient in the Bacardi recipe was thus integrated into the vodka: quality. Cellar master François Thibault would then take over and create a unique 100% French vodka owing to its conception in the Cognac region of France by an authentic French maître de chai cellar master. It was additionally composed of water from the Massif Central region and wheat from the Beauce region of France, uniquely composed with a respect for the traditions and savoir-faire of Cognac.
“We’ve chosen tender wheat, the kind that has a vanilla odor that’s also used for pastries,” explains François Thibault. The raw alcohol is brought from Cognac and mixed with water taken from Gensac – 160 meters above the chic limestone terroir of Grande Champagne, the most reputable plot of land for Cognac cultivation. The continuous distillation that François Thibault put in place for Grey Goose after 8 months of experimentation then begins. “The quality has to be absolutely regular: if you change one parameter, you’re taking a risk. Our vodka has to have a planetary recipe and taste.” It’s a personal and original flavor uniting roundness and softness that ends up making it into the mouths of consumers everywhere. No surprise then that since its creation, Grey Goose vodka has occupied a special place in the universe of mixology and the art of cocktail-making.
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