Boomerang takes flight in the US

Foster’s Group is hoping for a good return on the launch of Boomerang, a vodka produced exclusively from Chardonnay grapes grown in the Barossa Valley.

The Australian company is poised to sell five-times-distilled Boomerang in the US market, in a joint venture with Australian Chris Williams, who owns Wattle Creek winery in California’s Sonoma Valley.

Boomerang has a suggested retail price of US$17.99 (£8.80) a bottle and is the first grape-based Australian vodka to be sold in the US.

‘Boomerang vodka is made in Australia and because we’re such a high-profile Aussie beverage company, Chris Williams came to us with the opportunity to sell it in the United States,’ said Scott Weiss, managing director of Foster’s Americas.

Boomerang is distilled five times, charcoal-filtered and bottled in South Australia, with a distinctive boomerang-shaped label. Foster’s describes it as having a ‘smooth, well-balanced and supple mouthfeel, approachable and easy to drink – perfect served neat or in a mixed vodka cocktail’.

However, vodka traditionalists argue that spirits made from grapes should not be classified as vodka in the first place. They recently lost a European Parliament battle to have vodka officially classified as a spirit produced solely from grain, potatoes or beet.

Written by Richard Woodard