Sidney Frank was 77 years old when set out to create Grey Goose in the 1990s. Already a household name thanks to his work with Jacques Cardin and Jägermeister (in which he somehow managed to make a liqueur popular as an after-dinner digestif in Central Europe become the party favourite of youth culture), he could have quite comfortably retired then.

But he didn’t. Instead he sought to exploit what he recognised as a gap in the spirits market - that there was no premium vodka that was being presented as a status item.

With a plan in place, he sent executives from the Sidney Frank Importing Company to France, firm in his belief that the French create the best in everything, who appointed François Thibault, a Maître de Chai (Cellar Master) from Cognac, to develop the recipe in 1997. With his method, Grey Goose Vodka became the first vodka to be created in the Maître de Chai tradition, which allows aromas to be produced in the distillation process specific to the vodka.

The combination of Thibault’s recipe, which saw Grey Goose named the best-tasting vodka in the world by the Beverage Testing Institute in 1998, and Franks ability to market his spirit as a drink of the economic elite brought incredible success. In 2004, Grey Goose sold more than 1.5 million cases to become the best-selling premium brand vodka in the United States, and in August that year it was subsequently sold to Bacardi for US $2.2 billion.

The owners may have changed, but the original Grey Goose recipe is still the same today, and Thibault continues to oversee its creation. The vodka is made using 100% French ingredients, the soft winter wheat (which has an additional four months growth compared to summer wheat), for example, is grown in Picardy. The wheat is then fermented continuously over six cascading tanks, producing the wash, which is then distilled into spirit using a five-step process in this same region, north and east of Paris. Finally, the distillate is sent to Cognac to be blended with natural spring lined with limestone 150 meters below the blending facility, providing calcium-rich spring water, before it is bottled.

There's lots to say about Grey Goose, from its handsome bottles to its interesting flavoured varieties. The brand serves as a great example of how important understanding the market and being passionate about provenance truly is, and the its rise to the status of trendy, premium vodka is testament to this fact.

In this spirit, let us reflect on the advice of Young Jeezy:

Yea, this All Star Cashville's Prince

From Cashville to M-Town to ATL

When ya in the club and its a hater in your face

Go to the bar, order your grey goose, this what ya tell em'

I'm on that grey goose, do I know you?

Do I know you?

Do I know you?

No Mr Jeezy, I don't know you, but I'd like to. You sound like a lot of fun.