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Read more at source...or should that be sauce?It is enough to make a patriotic Russian need a stiff drink to get over the shock - an English vodka has been voted the best in the world.
Chase Vodka has triumphed in the 2010 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, beating 249 rivals from around the globe, including Russia and Poland's finest.
Tasted under blind conditions (all the bottles were covered to maintain anonymity), Chase was preferred by a 30-strong panel of independent judges.
And instead of being produced by one of the global drink giants in a huge, automated distillery, Chase is made on a farm in Herefordshire - from potatoes.
The spuds are all grown in the farm's own fields, before being added to water, fermented, and then distilled and bottled. It all takes place on site.
First produced in 2008, Chase is the brainchild of potato farmer William Chase, the man who founded posh crisp company Tyrrell's.
When he sold Tyrrell's to a private equity group that same year, Mr Chase realised he needed to find something else to do, and the vodka business was born.
Despite having no distilling experience, he decided to aim for the gourmet end of the vodka market and use his crops of traditional variety potatoes instead of the more usual wheat or rye grains.
Now making 1,000 bottles a week - a drop in the ocean compared with the best-known global vodka names - Mr Chase says demand is soaring in the US thanks to winning the San Francisco competition.
"Winning the award has been fantastic for us," he says.
"It has really helped to build up the brand's profile, which is vital. You can have the best product in the world, but it won't sell if the brand isn't strong."
YEAH! We English make good vodka.
We plant the potato seeds, tend to them and then harvest them. We then process them and make vodka which is then bottled and boxed and shipped off around the world.
Oh, wait! It's the Polish that do all that work.
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