"Ah, the ugly face of consumerism
aka people with too much money and not enough sense."
I think it was in Vance Packard's 1957 book The
Hidden Persuaders. While vodka is defined by the FDA as nothing but distilled
water and pure grain alcohol, people have preferences, pretending they can taste
a difference. Smirnov Vodka increased its price which increased its
unit sales. People thought it had to be better because it cost more.
That is ironic considering the Russian name. Smirny means humble in Russion and
the OV ending is masculine genitive plural so Smirnov means "of the humble men".
Or as I freely translate it from Russian it means "Bubba's White Lightnin'".
