The name Smirnoff is known to Americans today primarily because of creative advertising.

Peter Smirnoff was a Russian distiller of some note. By 1886, Smirnoff's vodka was so well respected that he became the distiller of the court of Czar Alexander III.

By 1900, he was producing a million bottles a day. Then history caught up with the Smirnoff family. The Czar was overthrown, and anyone associated with him was in grave danger. A fourth-generation member of the Smirnoff family, Vladimir Smirnoff, managed to escape to France, where he opened a new distillery.

A former Smirnoff supplier, Rudolph Kunett, had made it to America, and when he learned that Smirnoff had gone into business in France, he bought the rights to manufacture the drink in the United States. In 1934, he imported the first Smirnoff vodka. No one liked it. Even the many Russian immigrants turned up their noses at it.

Kunett tried marketing whiskey instead, but it too failed. When Vladimir Smirnoff died in 1939, Kunett felt the time was right to give up on vodka, and he sold the business to G. F Hublein and Company. There were 2,000 full bottles left in the factory when Kunett sold it, but there were no vodka corks left. So they used the leftover Smirnoff's whiskey corks.

The bottles were then shipped off to the south. The salesman accompanying them was curious about this colorless whiskey and sampled it. Right away he came up with a slogan to advertise the product: "Smirnoff's White Whiskey, No Taste, No Smell." He sold out right away. Smirnoff's is today the best-selling liquor in the United States.