Originally Posted by
polonius
My personal favourites are Russian (Stolichnaya) and Polish (Belvedere), but they are as much "marketing inventions" as any other brand. In fact, I don't see how you can differentiate between a brand of anything by classifying them as either "marketing inventions" or "homegrown brands" -- it's not as if these brands emerged spontaneously from the soil or were the result of divine revelation or something.
Point taken. By "marketing inventions", I meant that an enterprising businessman said "let me get a supply of vodka and make up a story and pretty bottle shape around it".
Contrast that to, say, Stolichnaya, which I presume was a popular kind of Russian vodka that did well in the export market.