V-One Vodka, the brainchild of Hadley businessman Paul J. Kozub, was selected as not only the best vodka for overall quality, but the best vodka to use in a martini, according to Pikimal.com. The Pittsburgh-based Website also ranks hunting rifles from Westfield’s Savage Arms number one in some categories as well.
03/29/10-Hadley-Paul J. Kozub and his award winning V One vodka.HADLEY – Pikimal, an Internet startup that asks consumers to rank aspects of the product they buy that are the most important, has crunched the data according to its patented algorithm and has come up with an answer: V-One.
V-One Vodka, the brainchild of Hadley businessman Paul J. Kozub, was selected as not only the best vodka for overall quality, but the best vodka to use in a martini, according to Pikimal.com. The Pittsburgh-based website also ranks hunting rifles from Westfield’s Savage Arms number one in some categories as well.
Not that Pikimal founder Eric Silver has ever fired a Savage Arms rifle or enjoyed a V9 cocktail – that’s V-One Vodka with V-8 juice.
“It’s never meant to be my opinion.” Silver said this week. “It’s not our editorial purpose to drink 600 or 700 vodkas.”
What Pikimal, pronounced pick’em all, does is collect data on products: where they are made, what goes into them, how many awards they’ve won and crash-test and mileage data for automobiles. Products are in a wide variety of categories from the best flat iron for frizzy hair to the best set of golf clubs for the beginner. Visitors vote not on the products themselves, but on the aspects they think are the most important.
For instance, voters liked a vodka that is distilled in Poland, which Kozub does using some spelt wheat grown in the Pioneer Valley, Silver said. The site also took into account that V-One won the prestigious “Double Gold” medal at the World Spirits Competition in San Francisco in 2010, beating out some 256 other vodkas.
Silver throws in some categories just for fun. Penn State’s Joe Paterno is the number one college football coach. Comparing 2011 baseball teams: the St. Louis Cardinals are number one followed by Cleveland and Cincinnati. The Red Sox are fourth and the Yankees are fifth.
Silver said he raised $1.5 million for the site in October. It’s doubled its traffic every week since then and now gets 10,000 unique visitors as day. His plan is to make money by referring consumers to electronic retailers so people can buy the products they rank.
Kozub said awards like the Double Gold and mentions on Pikimal are critical for his business. He’s fighting against brands that spend more on advertising, or have celebrity spokesman like Sean “P-Diddy” Combs.
“We were voted number one in quality,” Kozub said. “That was my goal when I started V-One seven years ago. We need to continue doing well in tastings. That’s really important in big cities outside our area. Kozub said his company sold 3,000 cases last year and he hopes to grow that to 5,000 or 6,000 cases by the end of 2011. He’ll do it by getting his V-One into more high-traffic liquor stores, then promoting it once it's on the shelves.
He’s signed a deal with a distributor and sold some of his equity to local investors to raise cash. He’s also added sales staff.