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The real connoisseur of la cuisine chinoise is horrified at the thought, never mind the act, of eating Chinese food with a fork. It's a no-no, it's just not done. You eat Chinese food with, what else, chopsticks.
This same connoisseur, when he drinks a screwdriver, will probably mix orange juice with Smirnoff vodka. But more important, he'll stir the drink with a real screwdriver. That's how American engineers who invented the drink years ago in the Middle East did it.
But right props or no props, connoisseur or not, one can mix Smirnoff vodka with practically any other liquid (tomato juice, for instance, for the popular Bloody Mary) to concoct a delicious drink, a quality of the vodka that can only be called its creative mixability. A Russian drink among the American people? What a mixture -- or is this all a mix-up?
It seems "out-of-sync" that the American palate should have a taste for what happens to be the national drink of America's nemesis. How did it all come about?
PARIS AND HARTFORD
Two cities, as different from each other as are apples and oranges, play important roles in the Smirnoff vodka story. One is the Paris of 1918, and the other is Hartford in 1938. However, before these two crucial dates, Russia, before the Revolution or 1917, was the stage where the Smirnoff success story was playing.
At the time, the Smirnoff family's famous vodka was already catering to royalty all over Europe, starting with the Russian czar, all the way down to the Kings of Spain and Sweden. It was a turn-of-the-century phenomenon: Pierre Smirnoff and Sons producing their well-known vodka and other liqueurs and distributing them all over Russia and abroad.
OUT OF THE ASHES OF MOSCOW
Following Napoleon's invasion of Russian in 1812, a great fire swept over Moscow and environs, destroying practically everything. After Napoleon was driven out of Moscow, the enterprising Pierre Smirnoff built the original small distillery on a plot of land by the Cluguny Bridge which crossed the Moskva River. His company was registered in 1818. Soon, the distillery and warehouses located at 2 Piatnitskaya Street became famous landmarks in Moscow. The company prospered, and the Smirnoffs, with an annual income of about 18...