Definitely off topic. Several years ago, more than I can recall, there was a very nice French wine available cheaply at Trader Joe’s. The story was that Pepsi was selling soda to Russia but didn’t want Russian currency and so they were exchanging the soda for this French wine the Russians had and bringing it to the US. Like many good things that came to an end. Fun while it lasted.
Ah, that’s negotiable depending on wines and party size.
neat story.
my pretentious, overly dramatic post was to highlight the huge markup on
french wines – the only ones available – i encountered in rus.
i drank vodka.
Funny. Actually, I simplified the story. At the time this was going down, PepsiCo owned Monsieur Henri Wines (which was importing the French wine). But in addition to the bazillions of gallons of Pepsi concentrate going to Russia and the wines coming here, Monsieur Henri was also getting shiploads of Stoli as part of the deal. (You could Google some of these names and get more.) The players have since moved on so far as I can tell.
Yep. Pretty much what we stuck with also. There were occasional bottles of white burgundy at only 2-3x markup.
But at $2.50/double shot for premium Russian vodka at the high end hotels, it was an easy decision to go vodka.
i found vodka surprisingly and scarily pleasant to drink with meals.
and they had vodka there i haven’t seen in the u.s.
oddly, i never drink vodka here.