Welcome to the Vodka Club – the way you can help fund Dan Edelstyn’s independent documentary How To Re-establish A Vodka Empire.

Since finding his Grandmother Maroussia Zorokovich’s vivid account of life in and escape from Russia during the 1917 Revolution Dan has been obsessed by her riches to rags story of romance and exile.

In February 2008, using her lively and colourful manuscript as a guide Dan went on a quest to the Ukraine. He discovered that within what some had dismissed as romantic fiction were the clues that led him not only to her estate but to the factory that her father had established in 1904 ‚ a spirits factory that was expropriated during the revolution but which is still open for business almost 100 years later.

With this twist in the story comes a new film as Dan embarks on importing the spirit of his ancestors into the UK and, following in their entrepreneurial footsteps, launching his own Vodka Empire with Zorokovich 1917 – as the world’s first social enterprise vodka.

So far we have funded the film with a mixture of charitable donations, some broadcast money (More 4 True Stories have acquired the UK rights, Babelgum are our online partners) and the vodka club. The Vodka Club is an innovative crowd sourcing idea, in which we the film makers, come direct to you the audience in order to gather support for what is a totally innovative, mould breaking project which pits Daniel against Goliath alcohol brands in a battle in which the well-being of a village is at stake.

Click through to see the series of shorts – which precede the full feature -  on Babelgum

See our vodka club members here:

Club membership costs £50. This is what you will get:

• You will receive a bottle of Zorokovich vodka, delivered to your door.

• When the film is released you will get two free tickets to one of the premieres of the film

• Your name will be on the end credits of the cinema version of the film.

Join now by PayPal, by clicking here:

You must be over 18 to join the club.

The procedure is to email Dan@optimisticproductions.co.uk with your name, address, postcode etc – and ideally a photograph, and some lovely comments about the project, which we will publish below…

Alternatively, if you don’t have paypal you can send a cheque payable to Zorokovich Vodka Company to Unit 7 Digbyland Studios, Digby Road, London, E9 6HX.

The Vodka Club has been created by and is owned, controlled and administered solely by The Zorokovich Vodka Company Ltd. For the avoidance of doubt, neither Channel 4. More 4 nor Babelgum accepts no liability whatsoever and is in no way not responsible for any obligations owed to anyone by The Zorokovich Vodka Company Ltd nor any contents of The Vodka Club site or in any other way relating to The Vodka Club.