Not long ago I was in the booze aisle of my local supermarket, and happened to notice that the Kamkatchka vodka was in plastic bottles on the bottom shelf. This surprised me as I’d always assumed it was at least a mid-market brand. I’ve never tasted it and certainly don’t intend to, but the display ads I remember from many years ago seemed to suggest they were aiming for typical middle class consumers and givers of cocktail parties, rather than those who buy their liquor in plastic bottles. Thinking back on how it used to be marketed, I could imagine seeing it consumed on Mad Men, instead of the Stoli which actually is mentioned although it wasn’t available in the early 1960s.
What could be the explanation? Did Kamkatchka descend, or did they lose their market as palates became more sophisticated? Or is it a result of an up-market trend in how advertising money is laid out? For instance, if you look at historic photos of Times Square, you find huge and costly signs for relatively modest products like batteries, peanuts, and razorblades. The impression I get these days is that such marketing grandiosity is more likely to be used for higher-end products and services.
Thoughts? Did anyone here use to drink Kamkatchka in the old days, and if so did you happen to observe any change in the product?
Kamchatka has never been good vodka. It’s always been, if not bottom shelf, then almost bottom shelf. Strictly for mixing with juice and not for anybody over college age. Plastic bottles are a recent touch. It used to be in glass, and dirt cheap. But I never touched the stuff after a wicked hangover it gave me one time in college. I’d rather drink Smirnoff, and it’s rotgut.
Smirnoff is most certainly not rotgut. It’s better than most bullshit high priced vodkas on the shelves. Vodka, in general, is a product driven almost entirely by marketing. Quality and price have virtually no correlation.
That is probably a strong factor in your perception. Advertising for a whole heap of what we now consider prosaic or even relatively downmarket products used to use the “lifestyle” sales pitch – and that was especially true for smokes and booze.
This included things like Calvert Gin and Kamchatka Vodka – produced by distilleries that were more based on whiskey (and after prohibition was lifted there were A LOT of whiskey makers in the USA) and often now merged into conglomerates. As the market evolves the companies realize these products can’t compete on image with the really big-league hype of brands for the Poseurtini crowd (think drab waterfowl), never mind with the real good stuff, so they begin focusing on “value”.
Kamchatka vodka is, um, somewhat like “lighter fluid” in flavor and burning sensation. Definitely for mixing, not for sipping, and probably useful for cleaning various bodily wounds if soap and water are not available.