The Ouk-rra-i-nah Story by Warren Metzler Table of Contents
10. Bottling in up
Next was the issue of the bottles. The bottle the factory already used to package Presidential Standard vodka was a great bottle: it had a distinctive shape; and was 750 ml in size, which was acceptable for sales in the US. So I decided to use that bottle for my Presidential Standard orders, and all that was needed was an English language label for the bottle.
However, the company packaged all its other types of vodka only in 500 ml bottles; including the pepper vodka, and the two buds bottles.
*(You may be wondering why I was still willing to import the buds vodkas. When I returned to the States from the June trip, I had called the US Federal lab that tests alcoholic products; and mentioned the expiration date situation. The scientist I talked to told me the US government cared less about other country’s expiration dates, only about expiration date requirements that had been established in the US. And there were no US expiration dates regarding vodka products.
Further, once Igor had returned to his hometown he looked for buds vodkas made by other companies in the Ukraine. And although he did notice an expiration date on those bottles, it was for twelve months after manufacture. So obviously the Ukrainian government had not established a six-month expiration date policy.
Igor called many government offices, but was unable to find any person who was certain about the government’s policy on buds vodkas and expiration. Hence I was not concerned.)*
The 500 ml bottles were a major problem, because several decades prior the US government had banned that size of container for alcoholic beverages. The government's claim was customers would mistake a 500 ml bottle for a 750 ml bottle, and then feel cheated afterwards when they realized they had less product than expected for the price they paid. I was unable to grasp the logic of this decision; because the US government accepts 200 ml bottles and 350 ml bottles, and the difference between 200 ml and 350 ml is considerably less than the difference between 500 ml and 750 ml. But that is the law and it can’t be changed.
You would think it would be as easy as pie to find 750 ml bottles in the Ukraine. But apparently not. However, Vlad was aware of a Byelorussia company that sold bottles of that size. Vlad called his boss, Mr. Gertz, and received permission from Mr. Gertz to purchase the Byelorussia bottles for my orders. And so, that problem was solved.