Chester Brandes and Timo Sutinen are behind the launch of a Florida-made orange vodka called 4 Orange. (Richard Graulich / The Post)

LAKE ALFRED — Standing in the heart of citrus country, where the trees are just beginning to yield the baseball-sized fruit that is Florida’s signature crop, it’s natural to thirst for a cold glass of orange juice.

But when Palm Beach Gardens-based entrepreneurs Chester Brandes and Timo Sutinen came to this Central Florida town, they had another beverage in mind. Namely, vodka.

A Florida-made, orange-flavored vodka, to be exact.

So, they set out to create just that spirit, hoping to capitalize on the sun-kissed fascination for all things Florida. Within about a year, 4 Orange Premium Vodka was born.

“Florida is a brand,” said Brandes, speaking recently to a small gathering of journalists and state officials at the Lake Alfred distillery where the vodka is made.

But that begs the big question: Will that brand — or, more specifically, that $24.99 bottle of vodka that symbolizes Florida — find its place on bar and liquor-store shelves? And if it does, could it mark the start of something much, much larger, as in a whole new Florida spirits industry?

4 Oranges Vodka (Richard Graulich / The Post)

We’ll soon find out: 4 Orange is being rolled out with the sort of promotional savvy that has seen such brands as Grey Goose and Patron become household names. The vodka is packaged in a sleekly designed bottle, replete with a “window” that offers a glimpse of an orange tree. And Brandes and Sutinen, whose company, Imperial Brands, is a subsidiary of the France-based spirits giant Belvedere, have recruited top mixologists to create signature 4 Orange cocktails, from a Miami Mojito to an Orange Crush, that play up the vodka’s citrus-y tang.

There’s even talk of finding a celebrity spokesperson to sell the spirit. After all, Brandes and Sutinen just signed up Bruce Willis to promote their other big brand, the Polish-made vodka Sobieski.

At stake is a piece of the $4.485 billion U.S. vodka market and the even larger global spirits industry. But it’s an increasingly crowded field: In the past few decades, vodka has gone from a tasteless mixer to a top-shelf sensation. Big brands have extended their vodka lines in all sorts of flavorful ways — literally. The ever-popular Smirnoff brand, for example, is now offered in such varieties as cranberry and passion fruit.

Plus, there’s growing interest in “craft” vodkas made in the United States. Take Tito’s Handmade Vodka, the brainchild of Bert Tito Beveridge, an Austin, Texas, geophysicist turned vodka enthusiast. In just a few short years, the boutique brand has gone from sales of 1,000 cases a year to 200,000-plus.

The 4 Orange team clearly considers all that as a sign of encouragement. But at least one industry expert sees it as a potential warning.
“We are probably reaching saturation … You just can’t sustain that many new vodkas,” said Noah Rothbaum, a spirits authority and author of The Business of Spirits.

Brandes and Sutinen admit they stumbled into the plan to create 4 Orange. Both men are industry veterans: Brandes, a New York native, helped launch the Russian vodka Stolichnaya in the United States in the ’70s; Sutinen got his start working with Finlandia vodka in his native Finland. They came together when they worked for Cruzan Rum, the well-known brand headquartered in West Palm Beach. After Cruzan was sold, Brandes was approached about starting a U.S. subsidiary for Belvedere, a company best known for introducing its namesake vodka.

So, in 2007, Brandes did just that, launching Imperial Brands with Sutinen. From the relative anonymity of an office building across from The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens, the company oversees U.S. sales of a wide range of Belvedere products, including Sobieski and several other vodkas from Poland, an array of wines from Bulgaria (yes, Bulgaria) and the Marie Brizard line of liqueurs.

Belvedere and Imperial also had the idea to purchase Florida Distillers, a Lake Alfred-based company, founded in 1943, that prides itself on being the state’s first registered distillery. Not that many consumers know about it: As is the case at similar distilleries throughout the United States, most of the products Florida Distillers makes are for other companies — say, a bottom-shelf “beverage wine” (think sangria) or a house-brand vodka sold at a drugstore chain.

As Brandes explained, Florida Distillers is a “bottler for hire,” making some eight million cases worth of product annually.

But that’s not saying the company can’t be about something else. In fact, the distillery was purchased with the creation of 4 Orange in mind, especially since Florida Distillers was already making other products from oranges picked from nearby groves. (“We’ve got a plant right next to us that pumps in the orange molasses,” said Brandes.)

And though Belvedere officials initially wanted the brand to also play up the made-in-the-U.S.A. angle — the initial bottle design included a depiction of a bald eagle — Brandes and Sutinen thought a colorful, contemporary spin was more in order. Call it citrus country meets South Beach.

But how to make the vodka? The 4 Orange team went the purist’s route. A neutral spirit (meaning it’s essentially flavorless), vodka can technically be made from anything that’s fermentable. In fact, most orange vodkas are simple grain alcohols that have gotten a boost of natural or artificial orange flavor. But 4 Orange vodka is all orange (and all natural). The alcohol is made using orange molasses that’s derived from four Florida orange varieties: Hamlin, Parson Brown, Valencia and Temple. And the top note of flavoring comes from Valencia oranges.

“Floridians can be proud of this vodka,” said Sutinen.

They might also appreciate the taste, which indeed packs an orange-y, fresh-from-the-grove punch.

“The vodka almost coats your mouth with different citrus flavors,” said Joshua Liberman, a West Palm Beach mixologist (formerly with Forte) who crafted several 4 Orange cocktails for Imperial Brands to promote the vodka.

The 4 Orange sales plan calls for the brand to be first introduced statewide — it’s already in the Miami airport’s duty-free shops and should soon be hitting local liquor store and bar shelves — and then to slowly spread to the rest of the U.S. and overseas market.

And if sales take off, Imperial Brands already has plans to expand — with a made-in-Florida rum. After all, rum is derived from sugar cane, which happens to be another signature state crop.

“The potential,” Brandes said, “is enormous.”

4 ORANGE VODKA:
FAST FACTS
How it’s made: 4 Orange is made using orange molasses from four varieties of Florida oranges: Hamlin, Parson Brown, Valencia and Temple. The molasses is fermented, then distilled, resulting in a neutral (essentially tasteless) spirit. Added flavoring comes from Valencia oranges.
Who’s behind it: Imperial Brands, the U.S. subsidiary of global spirits giant Belvedere; Imperial is based in Palm Beach Gardens.
Where it’s made: Florida Distillers in Lake Alfred. The state’s oldest distillery, it’s now owned by Imperial Brands.
What it costs: $24.99
Where to find it: The product recently was introduced at the Miami’s airport’s duty-free shops and should soon be available at local liquor stores and bars.
Web site: 4orangevodka.com

All recipes courtesy of West Palm Beach mixologist Joshua Liberman

Orange Crush
1 1/2 oz 4 Orange Premium Vodka
3 orange slices
2 slices lime, quartered
1/2 oz simple syrup
5 mint leaves
2 oz club soda
Muddle orange, lime, simple syrup and mint in a mixing glass. Add vodka and shake with ice. Pour contents into a double rocks glass. Top with club soda.

Summer Negroni
1 oz 4 Orange Premium Vodka
1 oz Aperol (Italian aperitif)
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz fresh grapefruit juice
1 burnt orange peel*
Combine vodka, Aperol, vermouth and grapefruit juice in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a burnt orange peel.
* To make a burnt orange: Slice the peel of a ripe navel orange into strips. Hold an orange strip about an inch away from a lit match. Carefully, give the peel a quick squeeze, releasing the aromatic oils. Drop the strip into the drink.

Sun Sophisticate
1 1/2 oz 4 Orange Premium Vodka
2 large cucumber slices
1/2 oz simple syrup
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
3 oz sparkling wine
Muddle cucumber and simple syrup in a mixing glass. Add ice, vodka and lemon juice. Shake and strain into a champagne flute. Top with sparkling wine. Garnish with cucumber.