I've been to the Absolut plant. the product is made in a very professional, very modern facility. the earlier product that as produced was made in a more primitive fashion and the facility could not keep up with demand.
On my tour of the facility, we started out at the bottling of the product and moved in a reverse direction of production. just prior to bottling is the fermentation vat, a HUGE stainless steel tank with motors turning a big paddle for proper mixing and to prevent settling. After climbing up what seemed like 5 floors of steel stairwells, we came to the "secret" mixing room, which was elevated above the steel tank and connected to it by a clear glass pipe aprox. 2 feet in diameter, coming out of the floor. I could see what looked like unfiltered product flowing through to the tank.
outside the door to the mixing room there was pallet after pallet of potatoes and what seemed like a hundred people waiting to start their shift. As I stood outside the two large doorways, a red light began to flash and the doors opened and a flood of people came streaming out. I looked in and could see that the room was lined with a stainless basin that completey circled the room and was attached to the glass pipe.
These people were all potato peelers and crushers or so I thought. all at once they started to pee in the basin.
They were getting paid in potatos.
