Jim Beam Red Stag

Chambord Launches Premium Pink Vodka

Filed under: Spirits

The flavored vodka category is getting mighty crowded with new brands and a myriad of flavor extensions from familiar brands like Smirnoff, Absolut and Ketel One. Into the fray this month enters Chambord vodka, the first line extension ever from the Loire Valley maker of black raspberry liqueur.

Chambord-flavored vodka is just that. It is French vodka, distilled from grains. The Chambord Black Rasberry flavor is then infused into the spirit. The result is a 75-proof pink vodka. Pushed with an ad message of "Pink Your Drink," the idea for the vodka was driven not only by the growth of the flavored vodka market, but by the fact that Chambord was already an ingredient in several popular vodka cocktails.

Chambord Liqueur, marketed and distributed by Brown-Forman, has seen a sales slide in the last 18 months due to the decline in the on-premise business effected by the economic downturn. Flavored vodka is one of the few solid growth areas of the spirits business. Flavoring, in fact, is going beyond vodka and into whiskies. Jim Beam successfully rolled out Jim Beam Red Stag, a cherry-flavored Bourbon, in 2009.

Tags: Chambord, Chambord Liqueur Royal de France, Chambord Vodka, Jim Beam Red Stag, liqueur, vodka