Skyy Spirits Changes Name to Campari America

San Francisco, Calif.-based Skyy Spirits is changing its name to Campari America effective Jan. 1, 2012, according to Gerry Ruvo, chairman and CEO of Skyy Spirits.

The name change is to better represent the recent changes made to the company’s expanding portfolio and its new positioning in the U.S. market, notes Ruvo.  

“Campari has made a very significant investment in America over the past 12 years,” he says. “We are not a one-trick pony…we have a wide portfolio in the U.S.”

Skyy Spirits manages Gruppo Campari’s portfolio in the United States including Skyy Vodka, Campari, Wild Turkey, Russell’s Reserve, Glen Grant, Cabo Wabo, Frangelico and Espolón Tequila among others.

The company continues to build on its Skyy Infusions portfolio, a line of all-natural fruit-infused flavored vodkas, with new flavors Blood Orange and Dragon Fruit that launched last year and Coconut slated for the first quarter of 2012. Over the past four years, the company’s Infusions line has tripled in sales, notes Ruvo, saying, “our flavors business is growing.”
In addition to the investment made in the company’s Skyy Infusions line it also is investing in its whisky portfolio. In 2009, Gruppo Campari acquired Wild Turkey from Pernod Ricard, the largest acquisition in the company’s history. Last year, Gruppo Campari acquired liqueur brands Irish Mist, Carolans and Frangelico from William Grant & Sons. Late last year, Skyy introduced Hakushu, a Japanese whisky owned by Suntory to the U.S. market. The whisky is available in New York, parts of California, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, Washington, D.C. and Georgia. Together with Hibiki 12 Year Old and Yamazaki 12 Year Old, the Hakushu 12 Year Old completes the portfolio giving consumers a full look at Japanese whiskies today, Ruvo says.

In addition, the brand for which the company is named, Campari, has seen phenomenal growth in the U.S. over the past two years growing at double digits. “All of a sudden consumers are more accepting of a brand like Campari,” Ruvo says. “The taste in America has changed.”