The great white spirit

In a welter of alleged corruption and industrial espionage, competing vodka companies from the former Soviet bloc are engaged in open commercial warfare. Indeed, for the past 15 years Stolichnaya (or Stoli, as it is known to 007), has been locked in a fight just to make it to our shelves.

Today, Stoli is a multimillion-dollar export to the US, where it enjoys a hallowed status.

But the fight over the exportation of ...