SKYY vodka is produced by SKYY Spirits LLC in San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. SKYY Vodka is 40% ABV

Alcohol by volume

Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage .The ABV standard is used worldwide....

 or 80 proof; SKYY 90 Vodka is a 90 proof high-priced brand aimed at martini drinkers. When SKYY Spirits LLC first launched in 1992 SKYY vodka was its first product; its creator, Maurice Kanbar

Maurice Kanbar

Maurice Kanbar is an American entrepreneur and inventor who lives in San Francisco, California. He is particularly well-known for his creation of SKYY vodka, and is also noted for his extensive real estate investments.-Biography:...

, claims the vodka is nearly congener

Congener

Congener has several different meanings depending on the field in which it is used. Colloquially, it is used to mean a person or thing like another, in character or action.-Biology:In biology, congeners are organisms within the same genus...

-free due to its distillation

Distillation

Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....

 process. The bottle is a cobalt blue

Cobalt blue

Cobalt blue is a cool, slightly desaturated blue color, historically made using cobalt salts of alumina. It is used in certain ceramics and painting; the different cobalt pigment smalt, based on silica, is more often used directly in tinted transparent glasses...

 with a plastic label. In 2008, SKYY expanded the SKYY Vodka line with five new flavors, referred to as SKYY Infusions.

Skyy Blue

Skyy Blue is a malt beverage made by the owner of SKYY Vodka, Gruppo Campari of Milan, Italy. It is available in countries such as Mexico, Australia and Brazil.

Corporate structure

Skyy is now the US marketing arm of Gruppo Campari, and markets not only the vodka line, but other Campari

Campari

Campari is an alcoholic apéritif obtained from the infusion of herbs and fruit in alcohol and water. It is a bitters characterized by its dark red color....

 products including Wild Turkey (bourbon)

Wild Turkey (bourbon)

Wild Turkey is a brand of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey distilled and bottled by the Austin, Nichols division of Campari Group. Its nicknames include "The Dirty Bird", "Gobble Gobble", "Bombed Tom", "Thunder Chicken", "Boat Gas", "Whiskey Tango", "The Screamin' Eagle", and "The Kickin’...

 and American Honey Liqueur.

Manufacturing

Actual production and bottling of the product was outsourced to Frank-Lin Distillers Products in San Jose

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

, California. Bulk ethanol is delivered in railroad tank cars to Frank-Lin's railroad siding near the San Jose rail yards. The ethanol is mixed with filtered and deionized water, flavoring is added, and the product is bottled using a 42-head US Bottlers Machinery Company filling machine to ensure uniform product level.

The ethanol is purchased from MGP Ingredients of Atchison, Kansas

Atchison, Kansas

Atchison is a city situated along the Missouri River in the eastern part of Atchison County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,021. It is the county seat and most populous city of Atchison County...

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

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

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

Pekin, Illinois

Pekin is a the county seat of Tazewell County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located on the Illinois River, Pekin is also the largest city of Tazewell County, and a key part of the Peoria metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, its population is 34,094. A small portion of the city limits extends...

 and is currently powered by natural gas, but United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ approval has been requested to convert the plant to burn coal.

Varieties

SKYY comes in a variety of flavors:

• SKYY
• SKYY Cherry
• SKYY Citrus
• SKYY Ginger
• SKYY Grape
• SKYY Passion Fruit
• SKYY Pineapple
• SKYY Raspberry
• SKYY Vanilla
• SKYY Blood Orange
• SKYY Dragon Fruit

Awards

SKYY vodkas have had some success at international spirit ratings

Spirit ratings

With a growing number of microdistilleries and an expanding number of offerings from large corporate entities, a number of institutions have arisen to provide professional evaluations of individual spirits...

competitions. The unflavored SKYY generally has had the best performance, winning silver medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Proof66 rates the SKYY unflavored vodka among the Top 20 vodkas in the world.