SKYY vodka is an American vodka spirit produced by the Campari America division of

Campari Group Davide Campari-Milano N.V., trading as Campari Group, is an Italian company active since 1860 in the branded drink industry, beverage industry. It produces Distilled beverage, spirits, wines, and non-alcoholic apéritifs. From its signature produ ...

Milan, Italy Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, formerly SKYY Spirits LLC. SKYY Vodka is 40% ABV or 80

proof Proof most often refers to: * Proof (truth), argument or sufficient evidence for the truth of a proposition * Alcohol proof, a measure of an alcoholic drink's strength Proof may also refer to: Mathematics and formal logic * Formal proof, a co ...

, except in Australia and New Zealand where it is 37.5% ABV / 75 Proof and in South Africa where it is 43% ABV / 86 Proof. Its creator, Maurice Kanbar, claims the vodka is nearly congener-free due to its

distillation Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

process. That is why the popular company slogan is "Vodka so filtered - we even took the Russia out of it". The bottle is a

cobalt blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminium(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighte ...

with a clear, adhesive label. In 2008, SKYY expanded the SKYY Vodka line with seventeen new flavors, referred to as SKYY Infusions. These SKYY Infusions are made with fruit.

Brand ownership history

SKYY vodka was originally sold by SKYY Spirits LLC, established in 1992 by Maurice Kanbar. In 2009 SKYY Spirits LLC was acquired by

, and in 2012 was renamed Campari America. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Gruppo Campari, and markets not only the

vodka Vodka ( ; is a clear distilled beverage, distilled alcoholic beverage. Its varieties originated in Poland and Russia. Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impurities and flavourings. Traditionally, it is ...

line, but other Campari products as well.

Manufacturing

Production and bottling of the product was initially outsourced to Frank-Lin Distillers Products in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

. Bulk

ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...

was delivered in railroad tank cars to Frank-Lin's railroad siding near the San Jose rail yards. The ethanol was mixed with filtered and

deionized water Purified water is water that has been mechanically filtered or processed to remove impurities and make it suitable for use. Distilled water was, formerly, the most common form of purified water, but, in recent years, water is more frequently pu ...

, flavoring was added, and the product was bottled using a 42-head US Bottlers Machinery Company filling machine to ensure uniform product level. The ethanol was purchased from MGP Ingredients of

Atchison, Kansas Atchison is a city in, and the county seat of, Atchison County, Kansas, United States, along the Missouri River. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 10,885. The city is named in honor of US Senator ...

, a bulk ethanol producer for beverage, industrial, and fuel applications. MGP uses

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

as a feedstock for the process. The distillation plant is in

Pekin, Illinois Pekin ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Tazewell County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located on the Illinois River, Pekin is the largest city of Tazewell County and the second most populous municipality of the Peoria metropolitan area ...

and is currently powered by natural gas, but

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...

approval has been requested to convert the plant to burn coal. After the acquisition of the brand by Gruppo Campari, production was moved to Campari facilities.

Awards

The unflavored SKYY won silver medals at the

San Francisco World Spirits Competition The San Francisco World Spirits Competition was founded in 2001 by Anthony Dias Blue as an off-shoot of the San Francisco International Wine Competition. It assesses hundreds of entrants annually (1,407 in 2013 from 63 countries) with tastings i ...

Donations

In 2025, SKYY previously a platinum sponsor of New York City's

Heritage of Pride Heritage of Pride (HOP), doing business as NYC Pride, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that plans and produces the official New York City LGBTQIA+ Pride Week events each June. HOP began working on the events in 1984, taking on the work prev ...

annual Pride Week scaled back its commitment.

References

Bibliography

*''Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook'', Maurice Kanbar, Penguin Books, 2001,

External links

SKYY Vodka website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skyy Vodka Campari brands American vodkas Cuisine of the San Francisco Bay Area California culture