Wodka Gorbatschow

Lev Leontyevitch Gorbachev was the operator of a vodka distillery in St. Petersburg, Russia.^[1] During the October Revolution, Gorbachev left his homeland along with his family for Berlin, where he started to produce vodka on April 28, 1921.^[2] The brand name, the onion-domed bottle and the blue label were registered by the L. Gorbatschow & Co. as a trademark in 1923.

In 1938, Gorbatschow Liköre J. Kramer & Co. was aryanized as a Jewish company and taken over by pharmacist Otto Ludwig Heinen, who became a member of the Waffen-SS in 1939. Due to various charges, Heinen was sent to SS-Totenkopfverbände and classified as exonerated during denazification in 1946.^[3]

Arthur Barth, who had entered the company Gorbatschow-Liköre Dr. Heinen & Co. before the end of the war, became director after Heinen moved back to his hometown Munich. In 1960, the company Gorbatschow-Wodka Arthur Barth was acquired by the Söhnlein Rheingold KG corporate to become marketed nationwide.

Since 1975, the brand's slogan is Des Wodkas reine Seele (English: The pure soul of vodka), alluding to the cliché of the Russian soul. The campaign was launched after Soviet vodka brands had successfully entered the West-German market.^[4]

There are different types and bottling sizes of Wodka Gorbatschow. The most common is the 0.7-liter bottle with blue label and 37.5% abv.