Brussels, July 26:

To most of its fans, who knock back the stuff without a moment’s thought until they are incapable of any thought, the row will seem a tad irrelevant. But passions are running high among traditional vodka producers who believe upstarts are polluting the world’s finest spirit with the wrong ingredients.

Sweden, Finland and Poland are joining forces to try to ensure that only vodka made from barley-grain and potato can count as the real thing. As the self-appointed guardians of the traditions of vodka, producers bordering the Baltic Sea have set their sights on multinational companies which are using alien ingredients such as grapes, beets or citrus fruit.

Diageo, the multi-billion-dollar British drinks producer, is being singled out for producing Ciroc, a vodka made from grapes. Boguslaw Sonik, a Polish MEP, warns that his compatriots will be up in arms if the EU continues to demand that wine is made from grapes while taking a relaxed view about vodka.

“I have heard a lot of hypocrisy,” he was quoted by AP as saying. “Just the idea of vodka made of grapes or citrus juice would cause a major upset among Polish people.” The EU is offering a compromise in which traditional producers will be able to label their product as Polish, Swedish or Finnish vodka.