FIRST CHANCE TO BUY BRANDY THAT STALIN SERVED CHURCHILL

[Yervant1]

FIRST CHANCE TO BUY BRANDY THAT STALIN SERVED CHURCHILL

 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/uk/first-chance-to-buy-brandy-that-stalin-served-churchill-7582925.html

23 March 2012

 

Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill at Yalta, where the prime minister

first tasted Stalin later sent him 400 bottles a year

 

Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor

 

Sir Winston Churchill's favourite Armenian brandy - said to have

played a key role in the shaping of postwar Europe - has gone on sale

in Britain for the first time.

 

The prime minister developed a taste for the ArArAt brandy when it

was served by Stalin at the Yalta conference in February 1945. After

the Second World War, the Soviet leader arranged for Churchill to be

sent 400 bottles every year.

 

However, it was not available to the British public because the

Soviet government only allowed a small number of spirit brands, such

as Stolichnaya, to be exported. Most supplies of ArArAt were reserved

for the Communist Party elite.

 

Now, more than 20 years after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, East

European drinks distributor Vinorium has brought 10,000 bottles to

London, to be sold from Monday in the city's specialist wine merchants,

such as

 

Gerry's of Soho, priced at about £29. Vinorium's Laszlow Puskas hopes

eventually to sell ArArAt throughout Britain and Ireland if it proves

a success. He said: "Everyone seems very surprised that it is finally

coming to the British market. Liquor shops told us they were getting

regular requests for it, but nobody knew where to get it."

 

The company is also bringing other "lost" Eastern European spirit

brands to Britain, including Ruskova vodka.

 

The brandy, which was also a favourite of Agatha Christie and Frank

Sinatra, has been made in the Ararat Valley since 1887. The brand is

now owned by French drinks giant Pernot Ricard.

[ED]

this is very funny, a sir Churchill?